Timelines and Heartstrings
by Calamity Heart
Summary: A rare snowy morning in the Hidden Leaf Village sets the stage for Naruto and Hinata's relationship to begin blossoming. But business as usual is suddenly interrupted when a mysterious girl makes a sudden appearance out of seemingly nowhere. And if that wasn't weird enough, the girl claims to be Naruto's daughter from the future. The most shocking news? Hinata isn't her mother.
1. Anomaly

**Hey, everybody! Here's the beginning to that new one I mentioned at the end of my last Naruto fic, The Blind Tigress. Check that out if you haven't seen it. I really didn't plan at first for this to seem like a direct continuation from the end of TBT, but that's how it turned out in post, so... xD Oh, well! No harm or anything!**

**I'm really hoping this goes as well as TBT did. TBT was a short little idea I started writing for off the top of my head. This is something that I'm actually going to think out and take my time with as I go along. The basic concept of the story is loosely inspired, actually, by an ecchi manga I read some years ago called "Yomeiro Choice". You can, uh... look it up if you want. x3 It's nothing incredibly graphic, but it's about as saucy as it gets, while still being quite funny to me!**

**I'm not going to promise three chapters a day the likes of which you saw in TBT. I do, however, promise that I'll put these chapters out as quickly as I'm capable of! I'm really excited to start this, and really excited to see how it's received! Now, without further ado~**

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><p>Snow was rare in the Land of Fire. About this time every year, the most that the Hidden Leaf Village would see were grey cloudy skies looming overhead and blanketing the earth below with a neutral dim light, which is what Naruto expected to see when he got up to peer sleepily out of Hinata's bedroom window that morning. To his surprise, he finds cottony flakes drifting to and fro in front of the window, dancing and twirling as they fell out of view. And from where he could see, the roofs of some far-off buildings were already lightly dusted in the icy fluff.<p>

"Whoa… Hey, Hinata. Hinata?" Naruto grins and turns his head toward his slumbering lover, curled up under her sheets and cutely facing away. He takes a moment just to gaze at the beautiful curve of her hip and her bare shoulder as it rises and falls with each soft breath, before stepping up to the side of the bed and gently shaking her.

"Mmph nreh tmmh…" she mumbles, and Naruto can't help but laugh lightly at the way she mutters his name when she rolls and sinks her face into her pillow.

"Hinata, come look! It's snowing!"

Slowly, the Hyuga heiress opens one eye and stares at Naruto for a moment. "…You're kidding…"

Naruto's toothy grin widens and he points at her window. Slowly, Hinata brings herself up to her knees, covering herself with her sheets as she tilts her head and squints at the glass. Her eyes widen again, and she looks back at Naruto.

"W-Wow, it is… I don't think I've seen it snowing here since I was six years old. My mother found out she was pregnant with Hanabi, and we were all so happy." Hinata rubs her eyes and smiles. "You're not thinking about going out in it, are you?"

"Aw, what kind of question is that? Of _course_ I'm going out in it!" Naruto replies, biting his lip when Hinata squints and brings a finger to her own lip for him to quiet down. "I just need to go home and get some gloves, boots, and my other jacket. Should we meet back somewhere?"

Naruto steps over to the edge of the bed to retrieve his pants, looking around for his shirt as Hinata sloppily redresses in her silken nightclothes and begins pulling the sheets off of her mattress. "I'll knock on your door," she says with a nod. "Just give me some time to get ready."

The both of them freeze solid and look at Hinata's bedroom door as the knob rattles, and Naruto's face goes completely pale when he hears Hiashi Hyuga's calm, eloquent voice behind the locked door. "Are you awake, Hinata?"

Oh, shit. Naruto looks around frantically, and Hinata chews briefly on her thumbnail before pointing Naruto quickly toward her bathroom. "Y-Yes, Father, I'm awake! How are you?"

"I'm fine… You don't usually lock your door. Is everything alright?"

Naruto creeps as silently as he can toward the bathroom and holds his breath as he silently closes the door and curls up in the corner beside the door, listening. Hinata drops her sheets back on the bed and fixes her nightclothes as she answers her father, trying to keep herself as calm as possible. "Yes, Father, everything is fine. Did you see that it's snowing?"

"I did. May I come in?"

Hinata gulps and looks at the bathroom for a moment, hoping her father wouldn't notice or detect anything out of the ordinary and grill her about it. "Yes, Father! Just a moment!" Hinata makes sure she's not disheveled, patting down her hair and reaching for her dresser to spray her neck with some of Ino's flowery perfume she gave her, hoping the fresh, relaxing scent would mask the stale odor of sex clinging to her body... Clearing her throat, she unlocks her door, swinging it open and smiling innocently up at her father, and down at Hanabi standing beside him, already clothed and bundled up to go out in the snow.

"…Have you _just _woken up? It's eleven o'clock, Hinata. You never sleep in," her father notes, raising a stern brow. "Are you sure everything is alright? You're not ill from night chills?"

Hinata shakes her head, relieved that her masking attempt worked. "No, father, I'm just fine. It's just that I was up until after midnight the other night, after all. I think I'm still readjusting back into my regular sleep schedule. I promise I'm fine."

Hinata notices her sister's silent smirk of amusement out of the corner of her eye. She doesn't have an inch to give to nervousness. If something seems off, her father will catch it. She keeps her gentle smile and tilts her head at her father's next question.

"Why are your sheets off your bed?"

"I was changing them."

"You changed them three days ago."

"Well, I've been having a hard time trying to get the dye out of my hair… I thought I finally washed it all away, but I found streaks and spots in my sheets just now, so I'm just going to scrub them out and replace them." Technically, it wasn't a lie.

Hanabi's smirk only grows wider, and a bead of sweat trickles down the back of Hinata's neck, thankfully out of her father's sight.

Hiashi nods slowly. "Hm. Well, whenever you're finished handling your business, I'd like for you to take your sister out for a walk in the snow. I have business to attend to with the rest of the Main House, business you need not concern yourself with."

"Of course, Father," Hinata says with a nod and a respectful bow. Hiashi bows slightly as well and leaves without another work. Hanabi, however, remains where she is, setting her gloved hands on her hips. Hinata frowns. "Hanabi, we had a deal. You can't say a word to Father."

"Oh, I know. I won't say a word," Hanabi tells her, whistling uncharacteristically as she steps away from the door and goes back toward her room. Hinata sighs and closes the door again. "It's safe, Naruto."

He exhales his held breath and steps out of the bathroom, wiping his brow as he quickly finishes redressing and opens Hinata's window. "I guess I'll see you and your sister later?" he asks with a little chuckle.

Hinata sighs deeply. "Yes. Go quickly, Naruto. We'll meet you at your house."

Naruto nods once and pulls Hinata in to give her a deep, long kiss right on the lips. She flutters her eyelids for a couple of brief moments before closing them completely and hugging her arms around his shoulders as his hands coil around her waist. They stay held there in each other's arms for what feels like forever, before Naruto pulls away with a playful pat on the tush, leaping out of her window and into the snow.

**OoOoOoO**

Sakura really should be more excited than she is. Certainly, everyone else in the village is pleasantly surprised at the sight of snow on the ground, and she is, too, somewhere deep down. But as she sits against the wall on her bed and gazes about at the dancing flakes spiraling toward the ground, she just can't help but think of that moment, standing with Naruto amidst the snow, and believing that she was lying when she told him she loved him.

It did start out as a lie. She selfishly deceived him and tried to draw him off the path he'd set for himself _years_ before then, and he saw right through it and turned it on her. Her selfishness and stupidity nearly got herself killed, if it wasn't for him and his timely arrival. It was then, when Team 7 had reunited again, albeit on uneven ground, that she began to wonder in the back of her mind if she could really still say that she was lying to herself.

And that little spec in her mind grew and grew and swelled and quivered in her heart, and what a perfect time for it to overtake the majority of her thoughts completely. But those feelings were hidden behind the façade that she still wanted to be just his closest friend. And they had to be. She knew Hinata's feelings, and she knew that Hinata deserved him more. Knowing the truth doesn't keep it from hurting, though.

"Sakura?" comes the voice of her mother as she opens the bedroom door. "You're not going out in the snow? Almost everyone else is just amazed! …Something the matter?"

"No, Mom, it's nothing. I'm still waking up. Hard going to sleep last night," she says. It's not a lie. "I know, the snow looks great, and I'll probably go out in a few minutes. Just got to get ready."

"Well, don't go without eating! I left breakfast on the table for you!" her mother says with a smile before she closes the door again. Sakura runs her fingers through her rosy pink locks and stares once more at the snow outside before climbing off her bed and heading for her shower.

**OoOoOoO**

It only made sense that weird things would start happening on the day it starts snowing in the Hidden Leaf Village, and thankfully, the ANBU were always prepared. Three masked figures touch down in the village marketplace, listening around at the concerned, confused murmurs. The purple-haired woman in the center adjusts her mask and looks at her two companions.

"Towa, you're with me. Komachi, take the roofs and keep watch and cover."

"Yes, Yugao," the blonde ANBU says before she leaps away. The brown-haired male in his bird-like mask nods to his partner and heads with her into the marketplace, looks around briefly, and takes immediate note of the disturbance.

Near the center of the main square of the market is what appears to be a flickering yellow orb held still and suspended in the air, glowing dimly and steadily. Yugao squints, finding the orb itself incredibly hard to look at… It looked as if reality itself was caving in, warping, bending, and flowing into and around this small orb. As snow fell near the anomaly, it seemed to spiral into the orb and either disappear completely, or spit itself back out in a random direction in the air. It was a difficult thing to describe, and it was certainly not normal.

"Everyone stay calm," Towa calls out as Yugao approaches the orb. It makes her eyes hurt, and she's forced to look close to it instead of directly at it.

"What happened here?" she asks, looking over at some of the onlookers. A shaken woman sighs and answers.

"I-It just appeared… Everyone heard a deep, unnatural sound all of a sudden, and I felt like the world was falling away from under my feet. I almost fell down… Some people actually did. Before anyone knew what was going on, someone yelled out and pointed at it. No one saw where it came from. I-It just…"

"Appeared," Yugo finishes repeating the woman's first statement, turning back toward the unnatural anomaly. "It sounds dangerous. No idea what this is, but we should get a containment team here and-"

Yugao stops suddenly as her stomach lurches and she suddenly retches. She clutches her gut and reels slightly, grateful that her stomach was empty. After lifting her mask slightly and spitting on the ground, she looks around to see that the citizens were panicking. Some _had_ vomited on the ground, and Towa looked woozy and unsteady. The shaken ANBU grits her teeth and looks back at the orb. It was growing. And before long, it wasn't even an orb anymore, but an expanding golden ring of unnatural, incredible energy, surrounding a yawning pit of swirling darkness and harsh, crackling stormy lights. Yugao backs away quickly from the swelling ring, then stares in surprise and shock as something flies out of it and rolls across the ground before coming to a halt, face-down on the ground.

The ring collapses quickly and silently, vanishing from existence as if it was never there. Yugao and Towa turn their attention to the blonde-haired girl on the ground, approaching her still body.

"She's breathing," Towa notes. "But it looks like she might be out cold."

Yugao frowns and kneels over the girl, ignoring all the frantic murmuring around her as she rolls the girl over and looks at her face, blinking behind her mask as she takes note of her features…

"She looks like…" the ANBU murmurs to herself, then shakes her head and scoops the girl into her arms. "Never mind. Let's go. We need to get her to the hospital and alert Lord Kakashi immediately."

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><p><strong>And so it begins. Thank you all for reading! Leave a favorite, a follow, a review, or all of the above if you enjoyed it! The next chapter will be up soon!<strong>

**~M.H.C~**

**May all your**

**Hearts beat with**

**Calamity!**

**Till next time!**


	2. Detox

**Welcome back! Hope you all enjoyed the last chapter. It's been received pretty well so far, and I can tell from all the favorites and alerts that you guys are eager to see more. :D Well, have no fear! Daily updates just might be a thing, probably! I got this done before my first morning class, so if all goes well, I'll have another chapter up tonight! Make sure to leave any thoughts you have on the story so far. This is one of those things that I'm only two steps ahead of at any given time. I don't have everything quite mapped out yet. n.n;**

**Enjoy! It's a little bit shorter than the last one, and that'll happen sometimes. I think the next one might be longer.**

**THERE'S BEEN A SLIGHT CHANGE! Yugao said she was going to alert 'Lady Tsunade' at the end of the last chapter. Maybe take a peek at that last line again. If you read this without acknowledging the slight change I've made, chances are, you're going to be very, very confused.**

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><p>Naruto sneezes loudly into his sleeve in the middle of getting redressed after showering off Hinata's scent and warming away the shivers he felt from nearly getting caught in her room by her father. That would have been messy. He sniffles as he pulls on his jacket, wondering who could possibly be talking about him today when there's too much snow to talk about anything else. …Although he could just be catching a cold.<p>

Naruto groans, really hoping that's not the case, though the more he thinks about it, the more it just might be. He almost vomited in the middle of his shower for some reason. He feels fine now, except for that sneeze, but something felt… wrong with the way his stomach lurched. It felt as if everything in the world just shifted slightly to the left. Nothing _looked_ wrong, but something certainly _felt _out of place that he couldn't put his finger on.

He shrugs, and lets that line of thought drift away as he whines to himself. He really really _really_ wants to kiss Hinata again. But he doesn't want to risk him _actually_ having a cold and getting her sick, as well. He sighs and bites his cheek as he wonders what to do, then snaps his fingers and throws open his window. Sakura should be able to help with a Detox Jutsu if he goes really quickly to visit her. With his signature single-minded determination, he leaps out of his house and pulls his hood over his head, springing quickly over the roofs to find Sakura.

Naruto leaves too quickly to hear the gentle knock on his door.

**OoOoOoO**

"…Everyone in the immediate area developed strong symptoms of nausea, and the unknown object began to expand into a… portal of some kind," Yugao explains calmly to the Hokage as they walk through the unusually on-edge hallways of the Leaf Village Hospital.

Kakashi peers around with a frown under his mask for a brief moment at the speeding nurses going to and from rooms, then back to Yugao. "Mm. Before you arrived, I had started receiving reports that the patients _here _were all suffering similar nauseous symptoms simultaneously. Doctors as well. _I _was feeling a little bit sick just then... Whatever happened, it didn't just happen to the marketplace."

"You think that _one_ anomaly had such a jarring, sudden effect on the whole Village?"

Kakashi pauses for a moment, looking at the number of the room that he was told the stranger was admitted, before nodding his head and stepping inside. "That's what my gut's telling me."

He walks slowly to the girl's side, deep, coal-colored eyes squinting as he takes in her features. The Leaf Village headband that the stranger been wearing was on the bedside table, and she slept soundly, oddly peaceful for having been thrust so violently into this world. Kakashi can't help but feel a familiar chakra within this one…

"She was unconscious on arrival," Yugao explains. "We haven't had the chance to get a word out of her about who she is. Does she look… familiar at all to you, Lord Kakashi?"

"Mhm… You had the same thought, then?"

"Yes. She looks a little bit like Naruto."

Kakashi looks back at the sleeping oddity of a girl. She had a very soft and slender face and straight strawberry-blonde hair that started a little further up on her head than normal and made her forehead appear slightly larger. What made the connection in Kakashi and Yugao's minds were the faint, dark whisker-markings along her cheeks, just like Naruto…

"…Yugao, I want you to keep watch on her. I'm going to check on some other patients and doctors and make sure that everything is still alright. Alert me if-"

The Hokage stops and immediately turns back to the odd girl as she begins to sit up in bed and slowly open her eyes, blinking rapidly. Kakashi stares. One of her eyes is a bright, vivid blue, and the other, a calmer sea-green. He furrows his brows and opens his mouth to speak to the girl, but she places a hand on her forehead and speaks first. "H-He's making a mistake… Hnnh… Where is he? Where's my father? I have to stop him, before it's too late…"

**OoOoOoO**

Sakura hadn't even gotten outside for five minutes… She was familiarizing herself with the crunch of snow under her boots, just several yards away from her home, when Naruto lands in front of her and scares her half to death.

"Sakur- ACHOO!"

The loud noise of his sneeze coupled with her brief bout of inattentiveness causes her heart to leap in her chest and she chokes on a scream, tripping backwards into the snow. Naruto sniffles and wipes his nose on his sleeve before reaching a hand out to his friend to help her up.

"Sorry, Sakura. I didn't mean to surprise you, I just need your help, really _really _fast."

Sakura sighs and stands up without Naruto's help, brushing the snow off the back of her pants and setting her hands on her hips. "Well?"

"I think I might be kinda sick…" he says. "I've sneezed twice, and I felt like I was going to throw up about an hour ago."

"…You, too?" Sakura asks with a blink and a tilt of her head. "Is this coolness making everyone sick or something? My dad was in the bathroom throwing up, and I felt really woozy and unsteady while I was eating breakfast. I used a Detox Jutsu on both of my parents, to catch it early if it really is some kind of sickness."

"Excellent! That's _exactly_ what I need!" Naruto cheers. "Hinata's coming over to my house, and I don't want to make her sick, too! She could be there right now! Can I pleeeeease get a Detox Jutsu so I can kiss her safely?"

Hearing it straight from Naruto's mouth was a bit of a blow. She knew it'd happen eventually. She suspected it at the masquerade ball the other night when she saw Naruto getting dragged away by a masked Hinata to a part of Tsunade's home they weren't supposed to be. She saw it, and she should have alerted them to the ANBU, but she didn't. Hinata deserved him, after all.

Sakura is hesitant to answer, and Naruto picks up on his friend's concern. "Hey, you alright, Sakura?"

She nods her head quickly and places a palm on Naruto's chest, forming a hand sign with the other and concentrating. Sakura's hand turns green, glowing with medicinal chakra, and it begins to slowly seep into Naruto's body. He closes his eyes and sighs at the strange, oddly ticklish feeling, and Sakura frowns and blushes slightly before pulling away a moment later.

"I'm fine. There you go. Try not to use any jutsu for a little while. Irregular chakra flow might disrupt the detox. You two have fun, alright?"

"Heh! Yeah, thanks, Sakura!"

Naruto moves to start running quickly back toward his house, but gets his wrist caught in the grip of an ANBU that quickly drops in front of him.

"Wha..? Komachi?" Naruto asks, recognizing one of the few ANBU ninja he was familiar with. She gives him a quick nod.

"Naruto, you're needed at the hospital. Immediately." Komachi tells him with a stern urgency, looking at Sakura. "You as well, Lady Sakura."

"What?!" Naruto whines, biting his lip and glancing back down the road. "I have things to do today! Can I have five minutes?!"

"No," Komachi says firmly. "Come. Now. Hokage's orders. This is more important than any other plans you might have, trust me."

Naruto groans, glancing once again down the road. "F-Fine, fine! But can it be as quick as possible?"

Without another word, Komachi leaps away, with Sakura right after her. Naruto lingers, breathing out loudly and running a hand through his hair under his hood before reluctantly going to follow after them.

**OoOoOoO**

"Hinata, I don't think he's home."

"But… he _just_ left. He told me- _I_ told him I'd knock. He didn't forget that quickly…"

Hinata stands at Naruto's door beside her crossed-armed sister, shivering and frustrated as she knocks on his door for the fourth time.

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><p><strong>Poor Hinata. D:<strong>

**~M.H.C~**

**May all your**

**Hearts beat with**

**Calamity!**

**Till next time!**


	3. Kisaki

**Heyo, everyone! Would've had this up two hours ago, but the internet decided to crap out for a little while. Also decided to restart this chapter from scratch once, to hammer out what I really wanted to say in it better.**

**I'd like to address something before this chapter starts. A couple of reviews I've gotten:**

_**"If you make this narusaku at least have the courtesy to take the Hinata tag off. Lord knows it hard enough finding a naruhina story without getting past all the sasuhina and narusaku filth first."**_

_**"Wait is the pairing going to be a NaruHina? Just want to know before I even get into this"**_

**Seeing as Hinata is a major character, I definitely won't be taking her name off this fic, I'll say that. And if you're looking for a plain-and-simple obvious ship story with a pairing that's predefined or predestined from the onset, sorry to say, you're going to be disappointed. This story is not going to immediately or apparently favor either NaruSaku or NaruHina. It's about Naruto, Sakura, Hinata, this weird girl from the future, and all their interactions, reactions to each other, and the tensions that result. **

**Sorry if that's not your cup of tea, but it's what I want to try. Hopefully, I'm a good enough writer to pull it off well, and as many people as possible will enjoy it. :D Anywaaaaaaay~**

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><p>Naruto was frustrated with how silent Komachi was. Verging on anger, even. He was absolutely positive that he had left an upset Hinata waiting in the cold at his door, and now he was being walked through the halls of the Leaf Village Hospital at Sakura's side, with not a clue in the world what Kakashi could possibly want with him. Sakura, on the other hand, had her full concern directed toward whatever was so urgent, forgetting almost completely about the slump that she'd been in this morning. As a medic ninja, concern for citizens' wellbeing was inherent, and if Naruto had to be involved for whatever reason, that made it all the more concerning.<p>

"Are we almost there?" Naruto groans, sticking his hands in his pockets and frowning at the back of Komachi's head. More silence. Naruto sighs. "You know what, Komachi? We may be friends, but frankly, I'm getting sick and tired of the silent treatment!"

He stops in place and crosses his arms, just as Komachi stops as well. "I'm not taking one more step until you tell me what the hell is going on here!"

Komachi nods toward the door that Naruto stopped in front of. "Go in and see for yourself. We're here."

Sakura stares at the door for a moment and gulps, unsure of what to expect. Naruto is not amused.

"Dammit, why won't you just _tell _us?!"

"Because you wouldn't believe me unless you saw her for yourself. Now _go_." Komachi says with her hands on her hips, quickly growing just as annoyed as Naruto. Sakura sighs and takes Naruto by the wrist, opening the door and stepping inside with him in tow.

She blinks, looking first at Kakashi and Yugao standing nearby with their eyes unfocused in idle thought, then at the slender young woman in a hospital gown, facing away from them and picking something up from her bedside desk. She wraps it up around her head, and Sakura realizes that it's a Leaf Village headband… worn exactly how she typically wears it. Before Sakura can give this much thought, Naruto opens his mouth.

"Alright, Kakashi-sensei! What's the big idea? Who's this girl and why is she _so_ important that I had to see her to believe her?" he grumbles, raising a brow at the stranger.

At the sound of Naruto's voice, the woman's shoulders go rigid and she sighs nervously for a moment before slowly turning around to face the two new arrivals. Naruto's face goes from angry to perplexed as he studies the girl's face, her heterochromatic eyes, and… the whisker-markings on her cheeks. _His_ whisker markings on her cheeks.

"…Wait, do I know you?" Naruto asks, his voice softening and his mind just aching for some reason at the sight of her. "You're kinda pretty, and you look… You look…"

"I look like you, I know," the woman says, the sound of her voice even and smooth with a studied, polite tone. She also sounds a tad woozy, as if she's not all there, or in her right mind. "In some ways, at least..."

She totters closer to Naruto, a mystified look in her eyes, looking as if she felt rather awkward standing eye to eye with the blonde young man.

Naruto is just confused now. He furrows his brows. "Look, I… I think I've been through enough over the past few days involving pretty girls who I don't recognize right away…" He takes a step back. "Can you just tell me who you are? Please?"

The girl nods her head and smiles over at Sakura, who is equally mystified. She looks briefly at Kakashi, who watches with his arms crossed, then back to the two of them. "I had planned on going about this with a little more subtlety, but I guess that's out of the question now. My name… is Kisaki. Kisaki Uzumaki. And I know you're not going to believe this, but… I'm your daughter. From the future."

The entire room is as silent as the grave. Sakura's mind is cleared of all thought from the surreality of this declaration, and for a few moments, she can't find the words to speak. She and Naruto both give the tired-eyed stranger a stunned look. Finally, Naruto speaks.

"Wh-… I don't understand. If you're telling the truth… how is that even possible?"

Sakura nods and frowns, clearly having the same thought. Kisaki touches her head and closes her eyes, looking incredibly sick and woozy for a moment. "You'll… have to pardon me," she says. "I messed up the jutsu that I used to get here. I should have appeared near… near one of those special kunai you and grandfather had… not the market… It's a really long story. I used up almost every ounce of my chakra, and I'm going to pass out again, I know it… But I need to tell you this…"

Kisaki's eyes begin to close slowly and she staggers backwards and lands on her bed again, fighting to stay awake as Sakura rushes to her side. "I'm from… nineteen years into the future. I'm here to keep the life that I know from… from vanishing." Just before she crosses the brink, she looks at Naruto. "Father, you don't know me, but… I love you. Please don't let us… fade…"

Kisaki leans over and falls against Sakura as she sits on the bed beside her, giving Kakashi and Yugao a worried look. Naruto lets the words echo between his ears for several long moments before closing his eyes and pushing them away.

"She asked to see you after she woke up and briefly explained herself." Kakashi says. "She was frantic… I've no idea what to make of this. What do you two want to do? She's your-"

"S-Stop, don't say that," Naruto says, shaking his head and holding his hands to his temples. "I've seen some weird shit, but… I think this is a little too much for me. I don't even know if I can even believe her yet."

"She needs time, Naruto," Sakura says, helping the sleeping girl back into her bed.

"Well… take your time with her for right now, Sakura. I've _really_ gotta go," Naruto says, turning to leave, a perplexed frown on his face.

"You're… just going to leave her? You can't abandon her like this, Naruto!" Sakura says strongly with a blink and a frown.

"Leave, yeah. Abandon? Of course not," Naruto says without turning his head once he's out the door. "If she wakes up again, just… lemme know tomorrow, okay?"

Sakura listens to Naruto's running footsteps down the hall of the hospital, a frown touching her lips as she gazes softly back down at Kisaki… her daughter from the future… with Naruto. With every damning thought she's had toward herself on this subject, considering Naruto's present relationship, this turn of events has left her mind upended, and she hardly knows what to think or how to react, beyond just staring.

"I'll stay with her until she wakes up," Sakura says. "I want to know more about her. I just… have to know that this isn't some joke." It takes her a moment, but she tears her gaze away from Kisaki's peaceful face and looks at Kakashi and Yugao.

Kakashi also takes a short glance at the odd girl and nods at Sakura. "Understood. Komachi will stay close if you need anything. You don't have to let us know if she says anything else. I feel like this is something we should leave in yours and Naruto's hands."

Sakura nods silently in agreement with her sensei and Hokage as he begins to leave with Yugao following behind him, leaving Sakura in the silence with her thoughts.

**OoOoOoO**

"Aw, maaaaaan!"

Naruto kicks at the snow in frustration. She _did_ come to his house. He can see her and Hanabi's footprints at his door! And he missed them. He huffs out a wintry cloud of air and begins to quickly look around, examining the footprints and determining which way she came from and which way they went, before running off quickly in the hopes of catching them.

_Father…_

He stops, the single word pulsing through his brain like an aching heartbeat as he watches Hinata's tracks disappear under a dark path trodden into the snow by other people's footsteps. Naruto runs his hand down his face as he wonders why he thought this would work. Looking around, he decides to press one while he's ahead, sprinting down the central road of the Village toward the park, the closest place to here he can think she'd take Hanabi.

Sure enough, as he turns a corner to head into the park to start his search, he runs right into her. Literally. He sees a flash of lavender and hears a gasp and a squeal of surprise before his vision and hearing leave him momentarily from the jarring impact, and he can only feel the two of them tumbling into the snow.

Naruto groans and quickly pulls himself up as he recovers, looking down and realizing he'd landed softly, his head nestled a moment ago against Hinata's chest. He looks up to her face, at the dazed and surprised look in her eyes, and quickly rises.

"Sorry, Hinata!" he groans, furling his brows and helping her up. "I didn't mean to tackle you! And I didn't mean to stand you up!"

Hinata's voice takes a moment to come back to her, and Hanabi, who'd stood wide-eyed in shock as well, steps up to her sister and helps brush the snow off her back.

"Naruto… What happened? Where did you leave to?"

_"__It's a really long story…"_

That little ache in his mind returns as he echoes Kisaki's words.

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><p><strong>Thanks again for reading! :) I love the amount of support this story and The Blind Tigress before it has gotten, and I'm really hoping that I keep up at this pace. I love all my readers, and every single favorite, follow, and review, is absolutely cherished, and they all inspire me to do my hardest to make this the best story that I can!<strong>

**~M.H.C~**

**May all your**

**Hearts beat with**

**Calamity!**

**Till next time!**


	4. The Family You Could Have

**I'm so sorry that I wasn't able to post yesterday! D: I wanted to make sure that this chapter was as perfect as I could get it, so I had to go back and look over it quite a bit, stop, think on it, start again, replace some stuff, etc. On the plus side, this is the longest chapter so far. :D**

**Like I said before, I'm really really hope you guys aren't here looking for a simple cut-and-dry story favoring a specific pairing like The Blind Tigress, because you will be disappointed. I'm sorry again if things like this aren't your cup of tea, but I do hope you enjoy my writing nonetheless.**

**A review I got! This:**

_**"This story kind of breaks the laws of time travel so far. I mean if youre going by back to the future laws then the only way things could have changed is if someone physically went back in time and changed the future, and even then the people from the original reality would still exist in their own parallel time line where they exist, things would just be different from that point on so someone living in that future wouldnt experience fading ala marty mcfly. That only happened cause he was the result of a future that wasnt going to happen living in a timeline where he doesnt exist."**_

**Rest assured, I've thought ahead on this. It's not a perfect formula, and I'm certain there are some logical bugs here and there, just like there are in _any_ plot involving time travel, but I _do_ have a way of explaining away the expected inherent paradoxes of this timey-wimey ball I've rolled up here. Kisaki will be explaining it in a later chapter, and I do hope it's sufficient and not too confusing or eye-rolly. :P**

**I do respond to reviews occasionally. So long as they aren't asking directly for spoilers toward the end of the story, I'll try to respond as best as I can to reviews that I feel deserve a response, like the one above.**

**Anyway, enjoy!**

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><p>"I'm guessing it was your father's idea to rhyme your name with itself?"<p>

Kisaki rolls her eyes and brings a hand to her face. "Don't remind me… My sister and I haven't lived it down yet, and we never will."

"Well, what's your sister's name?"

"Yokodaki…"

"…Yokodaki Uzumaki?"

"Hey, don't laugh!"

She'd stayed there for most of the day, only leaving the room quickly to eat lunch in the hospital cafeteria before returning, and she'd gotten up for another quick dinner when she heard Kisaki stirring in her bed and trying to open her eyes. Sakura, in the anticipation that had been building since the moment she was left alone there in the room, completely forgot that she was hungry, talking with her straight into the late evening.

She rubs her eyes and tries to settle herself down and keep from laughing anymore, even though she could see that Kisaki, too, was fighting off a smirk. "That just sounds like something Naruto would do. Where was I during this? And… will you suddenly have a different name if I decide right this moment to not let Naruto have _any_ say in naming our children? Do you have different memories right now of me telling you about how you came back in time…?"

Kisaki shakes her head. "My continuity will remain as it is if I'm successful. The way that time works is weirder than some might think. I know you're confused, and you'd really like to know what I've done and how this is possible, how there's no ramifications or paradoxes that could result. _I'd_ really like to explain it. But I hate doing things over… I don't want to have to explain it to you, and _then_ to Fa- to Naruto later. I'd rather just have you both present when I talk about it."

Sakura nods in understanding and opens her mouth to ask another question, but Kisaki continues. "I will say, though… even though I clearly take more after you, if there's one good thing I inherited from my father, it's his stubbornness… and his inability to resign to fate."

A very serious look crosses over Kisaki's eyes for a moment before she shakes her head. "Anything else you'd like to know?"

"Everything, really," Sakura says with a shrug of her shoulder. "I'm trying just to take this a step at a time."

"You're going to ask me questions all night?"

"Well… not just random questions. Things that will help me know you better. How well was _I_ involved in raising you?"

"Oh, jeez…" Kisaki mutters, chuckling. "You're going to be a strict mother, and our house is going to be the loudest in the Village if things go anything like they've gone for me so far. You didn't have to yell at me too much. I like to think I got in line pretty quickly. Yoko, though…"

"She takes more after her father, then."

"Definitely. She's not a bad child, really. She's just… _hyperactive_. And she loves to annoy you. Her day's not complete unless you yell at her at least once."

Sakura opens her mouth again, but closes it and remains silent for a few long moments to stew over these words. To stew over the thought of this life. This life that deep down, she knows she wants. She looks at Kisaki and smiles, and the girl gives her the same smile right back.

"With Father being incredibly busy, you're essentially the center of our lives in my time. I feel just as close to him as I do to who you are as my mother, but you've always been there. This might not mean a thing to you, and you might already be too far gone. My fate might be inevitable. But I'd be damned if I didn't try everything I could to save the life that I love, the people I love, that are in danger of being _worse_ than forgotten. Mother… Will you promise to try and save me?"

An immediate 'yes' was on the tip of Sakura's tongue, and her lips go so far as to begin to form the word. Before she can give her determination a voice, her face comes to mind: Hinata. Hinata, who's done no wrong, no sins on her shoulders, the picture of innocence, who clearly deserves Naruto far more than she herself does. How is she going to steal her possible future husband from one of her greatest friends in the world?

"…Kisaki, I have to ask," Sakura says, and the young time traveler suddenly looks worried. "Where does Hinata fit into your time?"

"She's the head of her clan, and she and Hanabi, who co-leads, are held as the two strongest Hyuga who ever lived. Hanabi developed the Death Spear Palm, a technique that destroys every chakra point in the body and obliterates the chakra pathway system, causing immediate total organ failure. It can't be blocked, only avoided. Hinata developed the Heaven's Palm Guard technique, which is the ultimate defense and the only known jutsu that can block-"

"N-No, no. I mean in relation to Naruto," Sakura says, shaking her head. Kisaki blinks.

"Oh. Well, they're still friends and really close to each other. Naruto just didn't marry her. He married you." She frowns. "You're worried about hurting Hinata's feelings, aren't you?"

"She's not going to just give Naruto to me."

"That's why you have to take him. _We_ have to take him. Hinata will be fine. She'll live life and move on. But she's not in danger of vanishing."

Kisaki leans over her bed and reaches into one of the drawers of her bedside table, pulling out the folded pants she arrived in this time wearing. Biting her lip and closing her eyes as she digs around the pocket, she smiles as she's finally able to retrieve a small, square object made of a curious metal. She hands it to Sakura.

"Squeeze it in your fist until it glows. Then open it. Just look at it."

Blinking at the curious device, Sakura does as instructed, and when an odd white light seems to come from her fist, she quickly opens it, peering down at the image before her. The device itself was amazing, as the four corners of the device pulled away from each other, and a flow of unusual chakra between these four corners formed a square that floated slightly above Sakura's hand. It was a picture. A photograph that was stored in the form of chakra and sealed into a little machine. Most amazing of all was what it depicted.

There were her and Naruto, nineteen years older. Over a typical shinobi attire and flak jacket, he wore a black coat with orange flames along the coattail, the Uzumaki symbol over one breast of the coat, and an orange number '7' on his right sleeve. Her own bust has grown considerably, rivaling Tsunade's, and she had returned to simpler attire, a red qipao dress and pink pants. Her hair was still only shoulder-length, and worn back, keeping her large forehead and the Reverse Seal in full view.

Between them was the girl laying in bed before her, her parents' hands on her shoulders. She has a reserved smile on her face, but the happiness in her eyes is too clear. And sitting on Naruto's shoulders and wearing his Hokage mantle was another girl, no older than seven, with one hand raised high in the air and the other pointing a fist toward the camera, her messy pink hair all over the place, her bright blue eyes as wide as they could be, and her mouth wide open in an energetic smile.

"That's the family I have," Kisaki says softly. "That's the family you could have. Is that what you want, Sakura?"

Sakura is silent for a very long moment as she stares longingly at the image in her hands. She opens her mouth to speak, but only a sob comes out, and she bites her lip. Tearing up and trembling slightly, she nods her head.

Kisaki grins. "Then that's the family we're going to get, and you better believe it."

She extends her pinky to Sakura, who smiles brighter, tears falling from her eyes as she gently curls fingers with her daughter.

**OoOoOoO**

It was a rocky start, but the day was saved, and Hinata was glad to enjoy it with Naruto and her sister. While the snow had not packed quite well enough for a snowball fight yet, they had enough fun as it was just laughing and throwing snow at each other, walking around and seeing the village in a new light under the fresh blanket of snow, and before warming themselves up with lunch at Ichiraku with ramen and zenzai.

After walking Hanabi home, the two of them were finally alone, and Hinata can only recall the warm smirk on Naruto's face, fleeting images of quickly-running feet in the snow, and the sound of the door closing behind them before she's gently pinned against the door to Naruto's home and caught in another deep kiss, much like this morning. Her mind rushes away from her, and she moves all on her own, reflex guiding her to wrap her arms around his shoulders and hold her close to him, able to feel the desire on his lips, and just the slightest bit of uncertainty as well.

Hinata brushes this aside. It must be her imagination, surely. She closes her eyes and savors the feeling with a gentle sigh as he takes a small step back, pulling his gloves off, then hers as well. His trembling, sore fingers tugs the zipper of her coat down with an aching slowness, letting her shrug it away and hang it nearby. As he does the same with his own coat, she slides herself out of her wet boots, her feet aching just as much in the new, slightly warmer presence of Naruto's home.

"Can you tell me what happened this morning?" Hinata asks softly as Naruto returns to cup her hips under the fluff of her long, warm sweater.

"Well, the short version is, I went to go find Sakura so she could use a Detox Jutsu on me," he explains as he keeps her against the door, settling his face close to her neck. "I kind of almost threw up… I didn't want to risk being sick and getting you sick, too."

"W-When can I hear the long version?"

"Nnh… I'll tell you later. I don't want to stop…" he mutters, gently kissing the mark on her neck where he bit her in his passions those few short days ago… She would open her mouth to insist, but she doesn't want to stop, either. She goes quiet and lets him tug her along down the short hall beside his steps and sit her down with him on a nice little loveseat in his living room.

Hinata sighs shakily with budding excitement, pleasantly surprised that Naruto was so eager and energetic in this way so soon after last night. Her arms rise as he pulls her sweater and her underlying bra up over her breasts without removing them, trailing his kisses down to her chest and leaning into her at the same time, to lay her down on the couch and loom over her as his mouth and his hands busy themselves against her tender breasts.

Her sighs turn into moans, the only sound in the quaint, quiet house, and she thinks herself louder than she really is. She looks down into Naruto's eyes and flushes brightly at his brief look of amusement before his kisses trail hastily down her bare stomach, ending just under her naval.

"Turn over," he tells her as he rises back to his knees, and she nods in understanding, shifting on the couch until she's on her belly and rising to face away from Naruto, hands braced on the arm of the couch as she bends over. Her pants slide down to the middle of her thigh, and the gusset of her panties is pulled aside to expose her ready body. Hinata looks back and watches him tug down his thick pants and undergarments enough to fish his thickness free and line himself up with her.

There's a long moment of curious stillness before he finally takes her, and Hinata sighs as that familiar presence and that familiar pleasure fill her body. Somewhere in her mind between now and when he merely tugged her garbs up instead of removing them completely, Hinata wasn't quite sure how to feel about doing this with pretty much _all_ of their clothes still on. Being completely bare made her feel as if she was more connected with Naruto. But in retrospect, after being in the cold for hours, the warmth of her clothes around her was a welcome sensation, as well, and as good as it still feels, and as close as she still feels to him, she forgets all about her fleeting concerns.

Time flies in the throes of passion, and evening quickly turns to dusk. But even as the night air seeks to chill their tempers, the warmth of their clothes and their desire shields them well. Hinata's face is nearly muffled into the couch cushion beneath her as she rests on the brink of exhaustion, moaning tiredly with as much strength as she can still spare after hitting a string of relentless peaks, while Naruto's focused face stares longingly at the back of her neck as he feels himself reaching his one and only.

He's moments away, and he feels it. But his lips twitch as something in his mind compels him. He closes his eyes and pulls out, gritting his teeth as he paints the curve of her lower back this time, instead of the warm home which had welcomed his seed twice before now. Naruto falls back against the other couch arm and pants right along with her, closing his eyes as the shield of warmth around them begins to fade only slightly with the dissipation of their concluded passions. Hinata looks back at Naruto after several long moments of recovery.

"Naruto… Is something the matter?"

"Huh? No," he says, wiping his forehead and raising a brow at her.

"You'd tell me if there was, right?"

"Of course I would."

Hinata blinks slowly and smiles, nodding before pulling her sweater and bra fully over her head, and her leggings and panties down off her ankles.

"Um…" she mutters coyly as she climbs off the couch, feebly covering her front with her sweater and giving Naruto a curious look. "Where's your shower?"

"Oh, it's upstairs, all the way down."

"You have unscented soap, right?"

"Uh, I should."

Hinata nods quickly, moving toward Naruto and bending down to kiss him softly on the forehead before moving off toward the steps with the rest of her clothes in hand. Naruto watches her until she leaves his sight, and begins to think…

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><p><strong>Steamy~ Thanks again for reading, guys. I don't think I'll be getting another chapter up tonight, but you never know! If I don't manage to, I'll definitely try to get one up at about the same time tomorrow afternoon, if not a little bit later. Stay tuned!<strong>

**~M.H.C~**

**May all your**

**Hearts beat with**

**Calamity!**

**Till next time!**


	5. Anomaly 2

**Welcome back! I'm glad to see that so many of you are enjoying the story. :D This and The Blind Tigress have received more favorites and follows in a week than _any__ single one of my other stories_ has received in its entire existence. And the amount of views I get every day are absolutely astounding. Two months ago, it would have blown my mind if I saw more than 100 views for any given story in a single day, and every day without fail this month, I get at _least_ 250 views. That's so insane!**

**Thank you guys so much for reading and enjoying my stories. :3 Even if you don't review, which I admit to have been shamelessly begging for on other stories in the past, logging on in the morning and seeing that that The Blind Tigress is fast approaching 10,000 hits after a little over a week of being on the site, and Timelines is not far behind, that just warms my hearts and motivates me!**

**I know I've probably said this in _every_ chapter so far. xD I hope this doesn't lose its meaning. I really do appreciate you all! But it genuinely blows my mind how quickly this has blown up, to me! Thanks, and enjoy the thickening plot!**

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><p>In the dense forests surrounding the Hidden Leaf Village, Team 7's training ground, where it all began, sat silently, blanketed in darkness, snow, and grave silence. The old hard-dirt clearing had not been left to the elements to fall away into disuse. Though it was looking more and more like there would be no need for training for a very long time, Naruto would continue to come here, to keep his skills sharp, just in case. And when he didn't, feel like training, the very least he'd do was keep the place looking nice enough.<p>

He'd replace the wooden target dummies when necessary, and clean the monument in front of them, but something he'd always do with each line of replacement targets was carefully engrave each of their names into them, himself in the center target, Sasuke at his right, and Sakura at his left. Wedged into the wood of the center target right above his own name was one of his father's own special three-pronged Raijin Kunai, which he kept to travel quickly and instantly there when he wanted.

Something is wrong tonight. The clearing is completely, deathly silent, and there is no one around to feel the chilling, ominous presence of _something_ creeping through the shadows of reality, cheating the very laws of nature, and making something else very, _very_ angry. It's just quiet.

It remains this way for a moment more before the Raijin Kunai begins to tremble in its place, and a strange, golden energetic glow begins to surround it. The sacred weapon seems to groan with some kind of strain, as reality itself seems to suddenly recede in fear at its presence, warping the falling snow in odd ways around it just as Kisaki's unplanned entrance had. This anomaly, for what it is, appears to be much more stable than Kisaki's, and the golden energy shuddering in the kunai radiates outward, swirling slowly into a bright, golden circle in the air.

The circle's energy is so intense that the snow around it begins melting, and after a few moments, the center of the circle caves in, puncturing reality itself and revealing a swirling torrent of stormy clouds and supernatural storms within the portal. A shadowy figure leaps from this portal and lands softly in the snow, golden chakra radiating like steam off its body. The person takes long, deep, calming breaths with their eyes closed.

"…Success," comes a soft, muffled female voice. The stranger opening bright blue and peers about. There's tiredness in her expression, and her body, while wrapped up in a multitude of cloaks that hid most of her features except for those unusually large eyes, was quite weak in stance. "I need to find a place to rest, and quickly... There's not much t-"

Before the girl can speak to herself anymore, _another_ shadowy figure flies out of the closing portal behind her, a split second before it vanishes completely, and slams right into the girl's back, sending her tumbling headfirst into the snow with a grunt. The girl groans and is slow to rise to her feet, quickly looking around and letting her eyes widen as she watches the fallen boy roll limply through the snow, clearly unconscious.

"No!" the girl squeaks as she runs up and falls to her knees at his side, furrowing her brows in frustration at the sight of his stupid, slack-jawed, unconscious face and the paleness on his whiskered cheeks from failing to keep control of his chakra. "Brother… You… You… Y-You big dolt… Why did you follow me?"

She doesn't expect an answer, hefting him up as best as she can and trying to carry him as his dry voice mumbles something incoherent in his sleep.

"This isn't how I planned… But I have to keep going anyway…" the girl sighs as she supports her brother under her arm, muttering to herself as she clearly tries to keep _herself_ awake and coherent as well, while at the same time, sharing as much chakra as she can with him, to keep him alive while he recovers. "Gotta keep going… Gotta find them… Gotta stop her..."

**OoOoOoO**

He wanted nothing more than for her to stay over. To have her curled up beside him in his own bed with her sweet voice and soft flesh as welcome company throughout the night. He can just imagine the kisses they'd share, his fingers and lips roaming endlessly over her body, chuckling at her flushed, embarrassed face as she'd squirm against his tongue and coo out 'Not there…' or 'Oh, Naruto…' But there was her father to think about. Her clan.

After that morning's episode, Hinata couldn't risk any more too-late nights, and overnight stays and return trips to her home were wholly out of the question for right now. After a long shower and a few fleeting minutes of laying together, she left him with a kiss and a promise that she'd see him soon. Naruto spent the rest of that evening on his sofa lost in his thoughts. His troubled mind reflected in his dreams as he lays in what feels like a bed, feeling like he's being torn in half. On one side of him in bed is Hinata, gently slumbering, clutching his arm for protection in the chilly darkness. On the other side he feels someone's hands trying to tug him by the opposite arm, pleading.

_Father…_

_I love you…_

_Father…_

_I love you…_

_Father…_

_Please don't let us fade…_

He can't turn his head. He knows what he's going to see. He just has to stare at the back of Hinata's beautiful head as the words pound incessantly against his ears.

_Father… I love you… Please don't let us fade…_

The words begin to echo, to repeat upon themselves and close in closer to his ear with each repetition, until it stops and he shoots awake with a start, bringing his hand to his face and groaning. He pinches the bridge of his nose and fretting over the fact that he lied to Hinata and told her that nothing was wrong. But how could he explain what _was_ wrong? This was unlike anything he'd experienced before.

He pulls himself up off the sofa and begins to drag himself in the same path Hinata had taken, stepping into the shower and almost grimacing at how neat she left everything. Living alone, and out of his house more often than in, Naruto didn't give much thought to his decorum, and sort of left things lying around his bathroom. Seeing its more tidy appearance left him feeling bad that he let Hinata bathe in his messy bathroom in the first place.

Naruto sighs in the middle of bathing and sets his forehead against the shower wall. His mind is a whirlpool of confusing thoughts, and he wonders when the dizziness will just stop… The distant sound of a knock on his door pulls him out of his funk and he quickly concludes his shower and redresses in fresh warm clothes before running down to the door.

He blinks at Sakura and Kisaki at the door, bundled up warmly and hooded against the still-falling snow. Sakura crosses her arms over her chest and gives Naruto a soft look.

"She woke up. And it's tomorrow."

Naruto sighs and rubs his temples for a moment. "I still don't know about this, you two. Wrapping my head around this whole thing is just weird. But…" He sighs. "I guess I'm willing to hear you out. But before that!"

Naruto points at Kisaki and lifts a brow. "I want you to explain what's going on and how any of this is possible. I still have a hard time believing you're some time traveler."

Sakura opens her mouth to speak on Kisaki's behalf, but the young dark-blonde haired girl sets a hand on her shoulder. "I was hoping you'd ask, Naruto. It's actually pretty neat and I really want to explain it."

The young girl smiles, obviously proud of her knowledge. "Time is really weird. Some people say it behaves like a straight line, with every event predestined and decided beforehand with no logical chance of deviation, since any attempts at deviation where already predestined to happen. They say there's only _one_ timeline, and nothing we can do can change the flow."

Kisaki looks around as she continues speaking, smiling and walking into Naruto's yard. "Some say that time is like a stormy ocean, an endless, unorganized void that changes every millisecond, naturally creating new timelines with very tiny differences, spawning new worlds entirely with no connection to any other world, and all sorts of crazy, chaotic things. They say there's _infinite_ numbers of timelines splitting off from each other at an infinite rate, with no lasting connections between each other."

Kisaki stops, looking over her shoulder at her listening parents and pointing at the leafless oak beside Naruto's home. "Well, neither of those are exactly right. Based on everything that I've seen and done, I've come to the conclusion that time is… kind of like a tree."

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><p><strong>The next chapter is going to turn out either really good, or really bad. I'm going to try and <em>explain time<em> in a way that I've sort of shaped it for this story. There's probably going to be errors or lapses in my logic. There are _definitely_ going to be weird questions that go unanswered. Like I said last chapter, I think, it's not a perfect formula. No formula's a perfect formula when it comes to time travel But I feel that it might work well enough for me to dodge any glaring logical paradoxes. I guess we'll see!**

**~M.H.C~**

**May all your**

**Hearts beat with**

**Calamity!**

**Till next time!**


	6. Save That Life

**Nothing much I can say here. Kinda nervous. Like I said, this'll be really good or really bad. And I haven't been nervous about a chapter like this in a very, very long time.**

**All I can say is, I hope you all enjoy it!**

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><p>Kisaki takes a step toward the tree after chuckling at the puzzled look on Naruto and Sakura's faces, and touches the bark.<p>

"Here's what I mean. Time is this tree, but much larger, and with an absolutely gigantic cloud of branches high up at the top. The base of this tree is the beginning of time. The top, wherever that is, is where time will end. Somewhere in the middle here…" Kisaki scratches at the bark with her nail and leaves a spot of pale wooden trunk revealed underneath. "… is where the 'present moment' is. And it's slowly moving toward the top of the tree, like someone is climbing it. You getting me so far?"

Sakura nods her head, and even Naruto crosses his arms and nods. "I guess that… kinda makes sense in a way. Keep going."

Kisaki nods. "The trunk of the tree represents the flow of time. The _branches_ of the tree are interesting. They are alternate realities literally branching off from the main continuity, starting from here." She points at a low branch on the tree, touching where the limb meets the trunk. "This is what I call a 'decisive moment'. Plain and simple, it's an event in history that blooms into a branch of alternate timelines and universes."

As Kisaki speaks, she runs her hand down the length of the lowest lying branch. "This doesn't happen for mundane things like stepping out of your house on the right foot instead of the left, or dropping your ice cream cone. Decisive moments are only events that have a lasting effect on the continuity, like, say… conception of a child."

Naruto blushes and scratches his cheek, his mind aching with thoughts of Sakura, then of Hinata, then of darkness, as he tries to clear his mind of both women right now and focus on this explanation. "You said there's a giant cloud of branches high up top, though. Are these decisive moments… predetermined?"

"No. I was getting to that," Kisaki says, shaking her head. "Time is messy above the present moment, in the future. There's an infinite number of decisive moments that have yet to occur floating there waiting to happen. An endless number of branches on the trunk, above the person that's climbing the tree of time. Below the present moment, in the past, it's much neater. Branches only exist where decisive moments have already occurred."

Sakura seems to be following along, with Naruto visibly struggling to keep up mentally, but following along all the same.

"As time flows, and the future becomes the present, decisive moments in the future that _don't_ happen are effectively pruned from the tree of time, and decisive moments that _do_ happen continue to exist."

"E-Explain…" Naruto groans, scratching his head.

Kisaki clasps her hands together and thinks, then points at two thick branches on the trunk of the tree she's using as an example that are pretty close to each other. "I'll put it to you this way. During every battle you've ever fought, Naruto, there were multiple decisive moments that existed at the same time, but for example's sake, let's say there's only two now: one where you won, and one where you lost."

Kisaki walks up along the side of the tree with her hands behind her back, the sight immediately reminding Naruto and Sakura of when they watched Kakashi do the exact same thing years ago when they were still novice shinobi. Kisaki approaches the two branches she pointed out, walking out to stand on one. It bends and creaks under her weight.

"As you fought, and got closer to winning, the branch that depended on the decisive moment of your defeat begins to _bend_ and _groan_. It _sags_ and gets _weaker_ and _weaker_." As Kisaki speaks, with each emphasized word, she stomps on the branch she's standing on. Naruto blinks and watches as the sturdy branch seems to start giving with ease, cracking and groaning and dipping lower with each stomp.

"The moment you won…" Kisaki starts, slamming her foot as hard as she an on the branch and snapping it away from the trunk like a twig. It falls into the snow with a loud thud, and Kisaki steps off of it and back onto solid ground. "…the branch that depended on you losing that fight was removed from the tree. And it's gone forever. That's what's happening to me and my reality."

Naruto stares for a long moment at Kisaki, then glances at Sakura before looking down at the fallen branch. "Your reality's decisive moment is being conceived by me and Sakura. And that's setting up not to happen," he assesses. "Do all realities who get broken off… feel it when they disappear?"

"Not… usually." Kisaki sighs, closing her eyes. "As far as I'm aware, I'm the only person in my existence who can feel the effects of this… temporal decay, because I'm the only one who's done what I've done. Everything I know about time and how it works, I discovered through observation, and by accident. I was practicing the Flying Raijin Jutsu that Father had taught me in the rain, and the special kunai I was using got struck by lightning in my hand."

Reaching into her jacket, Kisaki retrieves the kunai in question, the metal glowing slightly, with an unnatural glassiness to its surface. Naruto looks at it, just the sight of it making his eyes and his mind sore, and blinks rapidly.

Kisaki continues. "The supercharge teleported me outside the bounds of time. I'd… transcended. Most people can only think in terms of three dimensions. After my experience, I can think in four. And I'm sensitive to the workings and the flow of time. I can tell that where I come from, _my_ present is not _the_ present. Everyone else is living every second of their lives with no idea that they're fundamentally tentative right now. No one who I know can feel what I feel as we get closer and closer to not existing. Their ignorance protects them, which is why the responsibility is mine alone to try and protect all that I love, and help you realize that you'll be as happy with Sakura as you'll ever be."

Naruto leans against his fence and runs a hand down his cold face as he loses himself in hard thought. Sakura takes the device that Kisaki had shown her from out of her pocket, doing when she had done before to activate it, and showing the glowing image to Naruto.

"Kisaki showed this to me. Look at it, Naruto," she says softly. He wearily turns his head toward her and gazes down at the photo. At himself, his wife, and his daughters in a future that might not be. Several long moments pass before Naruto's lip twinges.

"…How long do you have? When is this 'decisive moment' supposed to take place?"

"The evening of December 25th, two weeks from today. That's the decisive moment when I'm conceived, and once it happens, mine and every other timeline that branches off of that moment will be saved."

Naruto nods his head. "You're really my daughter…" he mumbles to himself, then looks up as Kisaki touches his shoulder. "I... I know I love Sakura. She's one of my best friends, and what I felt for her, even back then when I was a stupider kid… they're still there. But… Hinata."

Kisaki takes a breath and opens her mouth to say something else, but pauses, her eyes drifting. Naruto blinks and turns his head, every inch of his body going stiff with a mix of panicked emotion as he sees her standing there, her face neutral but her eyes saying everything they need to.

"H-Hinata, I-" he starts quickly, going silent as she slowly begins to approach the three of them. Sakura seems to seize briefly in fear and panic as well, and Kisaki stares at her, her expression unreadably neutral as well.

"That was the long version of that story, then. This is why you lied and told me nothing was wrong," her voice says softly as she looks first at Sakura, then Kisaki, before finally settling back on Naruto.

Naruto wants to speak, to say something that will appease this shattering situation as the world begins to heave under his feet. But nothing comes out. His voice is gone, his mind is blank.

Hinata gulps before she speaks again, loose strands of hair blowing in the wind from under her hood. "I understand, Naruto. I heard everything, and I understand."

"H-Hinata, no, it's not… I-I…"

"You're torn between me and the responsibility you feel toward your future daughter," Hinata continues through Naruto's stuttering. She tries to speak further, but pauses to gulp again, obviously choking back emotion. "I've loved you for so long, Naruto. And all I've wanted in my life was to see you be happy, and I can see on your face right now that as much as you love me, you will never be happy if Kisaki, and the life you have in that picture, disappear forever."

He gives her a bewildered stare and starts to speak again, but she lifts a hand, and gently touches a finger to his lips before taking another step toward him and kissing him on the cheek. "I'll be here for a long time… I'll still love you. Both of you. All three of you, eventually. And I'll support you through everything."

A shaky breath in precedes her next words. "Save that life, Naruto… You'll never get it back." Her hand trembles as it falls away from his lips. After offering Sakura and Kisaki soft smiles, she turns away so he can't see her tears, and vanishes with a hand sign and a puff of smoke before he can reach out and grab her and tell her to wait.

Naruto had no idea what to say. That half of him that was safe and secure and content breaks away and crumbles to dust. He feels the tear stinging the corner of his eye as Sakura looks up at him, her eyes stunned and sad as well as she blinks slowly and hugs Naruto from one side while Kisaki closes her eyes and hugs him from the other. Naruto hiccups as he wraps his arms around them both.

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><p><strong>I almost cried near the end of this. This is one of those anxious moments of excitement in writing and posting something for others to see that I <em>love<em>. I haven't dreaded getting reviews since I started FanFiction as an amateur who took every single piece of criticism to heart, and I'm not dreading feedback here, either. But I'm more anxious for feedback right now than I've been for a very long time. Seriously, tell me what you think. I liked this chapter. I felt emotional toward it, and that's _always_ a good sign. And if you're worried, don't be. This story isn't done yet. Don't take every single chapter like everything is going to remain the exact same from the end of this chapter all the way to the end of the story. _Always_ stay tuned for more.**

**For those who asked in the reviews, yes, I already know how this story is going to end. No spoilers, but I think it'll be satisfying for everyone.**

**~M.H.C~**

**May all your**

**Hearts beat with**

**Calamity!**

**Till next time!**


	7. Moving So Fast

**I'm reeeeeeally really sorry that I haven't updated in almost a week. D: The new expansion for World of Warcraft came out recently, and I've been super-excited to start playing it. I don't have enough control to keep it from taking up a lot of my time, but hopefully all the downtime that the game has been having from so many people playing it at once, I have more time to devote to this story.**

**Writer's block has also been a little bit of a challenge lately. It's one that I've excitedly overcome for this chapter, and I quickly hammered out what I see as a good chapter, and I hope you all do, too.**

**If all goes well, I might have a little bit of the next chapter done tonight. If not, you'll definitely see one on Saturday. If you don't, you have permission to pelt me with fruit. n.n;**

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><p>The space on his couch that was still slightly indented with the ghost of Hinata's presence was now filled by another woman, and Naruto had no idea what to say. The quiet that he and Hinata had filled only last night with the sounds of labored breaths and clapping flesh was stagnant and stuffy, spinning around his hopelessly fractured mind. There were so many questions scattered about in his thoughts. Questions for himself, for Sakura, and for Kisaki, who was going through his pantry behind them. Many of those questions he knew he'd never be able to put words to, being a three-dimensional thinker with a four-dimensional daughter.<p>

He looks over at Sakura, how different she appears to him all of a sudden. Three days ago, she was his closest friend, that he saw on a regular basis, at least, and now she was to conceive his child on Christmas, to save that child's existence and to save the happiness that they could have. The smiles in that image that Sakura knew she wanted, and Naruto saw that he desired as well, deep down.

Sakura looks over at him as well, and the two of them begin to search each other's eyes. Naruto sees sympathy. He sees faint desire, confusion, and an urge to get closer to him, to hug him again. Sakura sees heartache. She also sees faint desire, confusion, and a want to be hugged again. With silent understanding, they both move closer to each other on the couch at one time, and Sakura hugs across Naruto's back and rests her head on his shoulder. Naruto hugs around Sakura's waist and rests his head atop hers.

He decides just to say nothing at all for right now, and sighs, beginning to close his eyes and try to relax.

"I know what just happened isn't what you expected," Kisaki's voice says. Naruto opens his eyes to find a plate of sandwiches on the coffee table, and Kisaki standing just beside the arm of the couch, her arms behind her back. "You're hurting. And I'm sorry. We're here for you."

Naruto nods and quickly inhales one. "What's going to happen once… _it_ happens?" he asks, reaching for one of his swarming questions.

"My existence will stabilize and the effects of my fading will wear off completely." Kisaki holds out her hand, revealing that her pale, faded complexion had begun to change slightly, and her skin now looks more like Naruto's does. "I'll return to my timeline and hope that nothing weird happens this time…"

"What weird thing happened when you tried to get here the first time?" Sakura asks, taking a sandwich and tending to it a lot slower than Naruto had.

"I can't say for sure," Kisaki sighs. "When I was using the jutsu to study time from the… Outside, I guess I should call the 'place', I felt really weird. Like I was being observed, even though I couldn't see anybody. And when I made my attempt to jump to the present moment, that same weird presence I felt was… there. Trying to stop me."

A little tremble travels up Naruto's spine, and Sakura furrows her brows.

"I got away," Kisaki says. "Barely. But I was thrown off-track and messed up the jutsu. Instead of stably emerging into the present moment at one of Grandfather's special kunai, I sort of crashed here at a random spot, nearly dead from chakra deficiency. I wanted to be subtle about what I was doing, but given what I went through, I'm glad I landed in a public place. If I'd crashed somewhere secluded, I would have died quickly."

Sakura nods softly and smiles. "You're a lucky girl, then. How do you know you won't have the same trouble going back?"

"I don't. In fact, I'm almost _certain_ I'll have trouble going back. I just… don't know what it is, but even now, I feel that presence watching me from the Outside. I'm not going to worry about it. If I die, at least I'll die knowing that my sister, my parents, and I got a chance to actually live first." Kisaki smiles. "We should go out somewhere nice. The bathhouse is probably really popular about now."

Naruto and Sakura look over at each other for a moment and blink. "Right now?" Sakura asks.

"It'd ease everyone's minds. And we don't have to go right this moment. An hour, maybe? After these sandwiches digest?"

Naruto shrugs. "That sounds… nice, actually. Sure." Sakura nods her agreement, and Kisaki chuckles.

"Good. I'm going to look around a bit. I want to see everything."

She bows her head lightly before going off toward the front door, leaving Naruto and Sakura alone with a brief breeze of cold air from the outside. Sakura looks at Naruto again and sighs.

"I know you'll be okay, right?" she asks, to which Naruto responds with a simple nod. "I'm… sorry it turned out this way. I wasn't sure at all what to expect in the days to come after talking into the night with Kisaki…"

"It's not your fault, Sakura. Everything is moving so fast. This isn't how I wanted Hinata to be introduced to the whole situation. I don't know what I'm going to say, but I need to talk to her soon. As for… us," he starts, scratching the back of his neck and running through his head as many thoughts of Kisaki, her words, and her mission as he can find in his cluttered mind. "We'll make it work. You love Kisaki and want that life, I can tell."

He looks at the small device he'd set on the edge of the table, picks it up, and activates it by closing his fist around it, opening it up to reveal the image, all their faces smiling up at him. He puts this physical image of what could be with his former imaginations about what could be, and winces when he discovers that he didn't think very far ahead with his and Hinata's relationship. With her, he lived in the present, for the present, and realizing that he's holding in his hand something to look forward to stuns him for a moment.

"I want this life, too," he finally says after breathing out gently. "Both our hearts want this… And I guess our heart will meet."

He finally looks back over at Sakura, just in time to blink in surprise as she leans over to press her lips gently against his own for a few short moments before pulling away, looking off to the side and saying words. Naruto has no time to think or process. He reaches for Sakura's shoulders, holding her still as he leans in to swiftly and deeply kiss her back, closing his eyes and letting her shocked face recede to the darkness.

That kiss sparked something in his shaken mind that causes him to lose himself. He slips free from the bonds of self-control and madly kisses the woman on his couch, his hands roaming, touching, groping, barely registering the shaky, unfocused, uncharacteristically weak grip on his wrists. He feels her, the softness of her body filling that empty space, the warm presence easing his scattered thoughts and his sundered, confused soul.

Relentlessly passionate, he leans into the warm body and pins her form against his couch, trailing his kisses from lips down to neck, slipping further away. His hand had barely touched her thigh before her soft groan pulls him roughly back to reality.

_Everything is moving so fast…_ He opens his eyes and sits up, processing his position, taking in the stunned, flustered expression on Sakura's blushing face as he leans over her. He quickly rights himself and sighs, running a hand down his face. "Sakura… I'm-"

"It's fine, Naruto," Sakura mutters, trying to calm herself as she sits up as well. "I should be apologizing. You just need time. We both need time. And an outing with Kisaki will do us good."

He nods silently, hugging her close as she leans on him, and staring at his front door. For a moment, his intuition tells him that he's being watched, and he turns his head over toward the window. The presence vanishes as quickly as Naruto had noticed it. There's nothing at the window. He shivers, but thinks nothing more of it.

**OoOoOoO**

He'd only been in her room one time, for less than eight hours, but her room still feels emptier than it did before she heard what she heard and did what she did. She feels as if that part of him that had also become a part of her was now gone, and she was smaller as a result.

"No," she says to herself with a sigh, choking down the emotion. "He's not gone. I'm not gone." She repeats herself until she believes it, and sits down on the cool, clean sheets of her bed, ignoring the creak and resisting urge to shift on her bed so she can hear it again. She runs her hands through her hair and loses herself in her thoughts, trying to wrap her head around this world-tilting woman's sudden appearance in Naruto's life.

Did she do the right thing? She thinks she did. 'If you love something, let it go,' as they say… Naruto, Sakura, their theoretical daughter… Surely there would have been discontent if she'd pressed the issue and tried to hold him for herself. Would conflict have sparked? Would they have talked? Would Kisaki retaliate? Would Sakura? Would they come to blows? Would Naruto decide that neither of them was worth the stress and remove himself entirely from this twisted quandary?

It was like Kisaki had implied, a confusing cloud of choices that had not been made yet, collapsing further still into more choices, more consequences, more heartache, more hardship, more tension. No. She did what was best. Not much has to change. She can still remain close to Naruto, express herself as a friend to him, to Sakura, and to Kisaki. Go places with him, see the inside of his home, listen to his voice and his thoughts… She just can't have sex with him anymore. That wasn't such a big deal, right?

But, then, why did she have the nagging feeling that it _was?_

Hinata opens her eyes, gasping with a start as she hears a near-frantic tapping at her window. She half-expects to see Naruto, and silently berates herself. She locks on with bright blue eyes, _just_ like his, and has to stop and stare, taken aback and unsure how to respond.

"Hinata!" It's a female's voice. It sounds like her own, but louder. "I know you're confused, I know you're hurting, and I know you just broke things off with Naruto. I want to talk to you about it. Can you please let me in? I can help you!"

She hesitates for a moment, staring at the strange girl, before warily deciding to give her a moment, opening the window and letting her sit on the sill, holding a hand out to keep her from climbing in entirely. The girl was just about a head shorter than Hinata, with a familiar stance just barely discernable under that mass of blankets and shrouds surrounding her.

"W-Who are you?" Hinata demands, shivering. It was almost too cold for her to assert herself, but she manages. "You're not coming in until you tell me that, and why you care so much about my business that you think you can 'help' me."

The girl nods quickly, and tugs the masks and wraps from around her head, tossing them to the floor. One look at this girl's young teenage face, and Hinata has already figured it out. And now her world has been turned even _further_ on its head. She has Naruto's bright blue eyes and whisker-like markings on her face, and she has Hinata's own hime bangs, soft, round face, and gloomy-colored blue hair, cut so that it flared out slightly around her head, and with a short strand of hair blooming from the top of her head.

The girl holds out her gloved hands as she sees Hinata's surprised, confused face. "I know what you're thinking. And the answer is yes. My name is Himawari Uzumaki, and I'm your daughter from almost fifteen years into the future."

* * *

><p><strong>Some people guessed it. Others had suspicions. Some <em>wanted<em> this to happen and have actually told me _to_ make it happen. :P Well, here it is, finally. This was planned from the start. Like I said in a previous chapter, I have a pretty good idea of where this story is going to end and how, and Naruto and Hinata's _actual_ canon children do play a large part. Before Kishimoto released Chapter 700, I was just going to use a Naru/Hina OC. Now that we've seen Hima and Bolt, I just _had_ to use them instead!**

**Stay tuned for the next chapter, whenever that is! I'll try not to make you guys have to wait five days anymore. T-T Forgive me!**

**~M.H.C~**

**May all your**

**Hearts beat with**

**Calamity!**

**Till next time!**


	8. Consequences

**I'm sorry! T-T Once again, lots of things happening all at once in my college life, and I haven't been able to commit as much time as I'd like to writing. It's unfortunate! Feel free to pelt me with fruit. I had a hard time and a fun time writing through this chapter. Hopefully, the fun I had shows more than the difficulty I had.**

_**"Well here's what's going to happen. Naruto will end up with both Sakura and Hinata, causing both timelines to co-exist making everybody happy. The End. Now I can go find something more unpredictable to read."**_

**It's disappointing to see reviews like this, for sure. It's my hope that there's not a lot of you who think this way. I'm not, of course, going to spoil the ending of the story, but since I've been itching to say it for a while after getting this last week, I'll say it now, the above prediction is _wrong._**

**That's all I'm going to say. I would hope that the ending I have in mind for this story isn't cliché, but it's definitely not _that_ cliché.**

**Enjoy!**

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><p>Almost every time Naruto had stepped out into the cold and snow since the day it began, it's had a different feeling to him, and it seemed now that the weather sympathized and reflected his mood. When the snow began, it was gentle and steadily falling, odd but curiously peaceful. They walked bundled up on the path toward the Leaf Village bath and springs, and though they were warm enough that it wasn't a bother, Naruto and Sakura could certainly tell that the winds had begun to pick up a little higher up, whirling the snow above them in a flurry of uncertain, confusing directions.<p>

Their eyes kept to the sky for several moments as Kisaki's two-colored stare keeps straight ahead. She glances briefly between Naruto and Sakura before speaking. "The village sure was a lot more different back in this time," she notes curiously. "I hardly noticed how much the world around me had been changing as I was growing up. It seems like just yesterday, every single building was… this size."

Kisaki chuckles. "I'm probably not making sense, am I?"

"Oh, don't worry. I can understand what you mean by _that_, at least," Naruto comments with a slight smirk. "What's your Leaf Village like?"

"It's busy. Inside and out," Kisaki says. "With no wars and very little fighting going on, everyone is focusing on expanding, modernizing the Village, even spreading over to new lands across the sea to expand our reach, to forge peace all over the world. The five Kage have been meeting almost every week with continued discussions about plans to go about doing this. That's why you're so busy in my present, Father."

Kisaki pauses and hesitates in the middle of her last word, remembering Naruto's insistence not to call him that. He chuckles lightly, clearly still a bit uncomfortable. "I… guess 'Father' will work if you can't help it. I'll get used to it."

The young dark-blonde smiles warmly and nods. "Mother, on the other hand, busies herself at home, complaining about how things were simpler in the past when peace was scarce, and other cranky old-person sayings," she snickers. Sakura blinks and huffs, glaring playfully at Kisaki, who shakes her head. "I kid. She works on-call at the hospital in case of emergencies. Accidents do happen in the world, still. And she's starting to teach Yoko early in preparation for enrolling her into the Academy, trying to curb her hyperactivity enough so that her eventual sensei don't lose their minds trying to instruct her."

The bridge toward the main building of the bathhouse and springs were just ahead. Naruto blinks as he realizes that he hasn't been here since it was rebuilt following Pain's devastating attack, and was impressed with how much larger and nicer it looked compared to the quaint, comfortable little place where Jiraiya had taken him to train and relax. It couldn't have been more than eight years ago, but it felt like decades…

"Get her!"

"Wait, don't you dare...!"

"Lightning Style: Whirling Bolt Jutsu!"

He hears it, and is nearly too slow to react, furrowing his brows and turning his head just in time to see a spinning yellow missile crackling with power and cruising right toward Kisaki as they stop on the crest of the arced bridge. Kisaki's eyes widen in surprise, and with split-second concentration, her whole body blinks in a yellow flash, and she is suddenly two feet to the left from where she'd been standing an instant earlier. The spinning missile of lightning flies harmlessly past and fizzles out with a bang and a cloud of steam as it falls into the water below.

Naruto and Sakura just stare at where the object landed before immediately looking back at where it'd come from.

"B-Boruto! You're such an idiot! I told you not to do something like that!"

Atop the roof of a house close by stands a girl with a chillingly familiar mix of features, clear frustration and annoyance in her bright blue eyes, and at her side is Hinata, who looked about as stunned and taken aback as the rest of them. In the water, the flying missile is revealed to have been an actual person, and he gasps for breath as he breaks the surface of the water and shivers. He has much the same familiar features as the other stranger, though he appears slightly older and his flared hair is blonde instead of dark blue.

"It's Bolt! And I thought we were on a mission, Hima!" he yells back at his companion. "Time is of the essence!"

"This is why I didn't want you to come with me! You're messing everything up!"

"_She's_ messing everything up!" Bolt replies, pointing at Kisaki.

The girl touches two fingers to her forehead in frustration and sighs. She takes Hinata's hand and jumps with her from the roof to the bridge while Bolt grumbles and clamors to leave the water below. Naruto shakes his head to clear the surprise from the sudden shift in situation, looking at Hinata strangely.

"W… What's going on? Hinata, who are these two?"

Hinata also has a strange look of confliction and nervousness on her face, and after a moment, she opens her mouth to speak, but Hima points at Naruto and speaks in her stead.

"I'll cut right to the chase. My name is Himawari Uzumaki, and I'm your daughter from the future. Yours and Hinata's. That… doof over there, is my big brother, Boruto."

"My name is Bolt, dammit!"

Naruto can only stare for a long moment. He gives a flat look first to Himawari, then behind him to Kisaki, and back to Himawari before it clicks. "What. No… No, that… That can't be right. That can't be… right?" He looks to Kisaki again, who's just as stunned and confused. Sakura's breath leaves her body as her worst fears begin to be realized.

"That's _not_ right," Kisaki says, her eyes wide and confused. "I thought…"

"You thought that because you were the only one you knew of that could understand time and feel what you could feel, you had the right to change the course of history to your liking," Himawari finishes for her.

"S-So you were affected by lightning, too?" Kisaki asks. "While using the Flying Raijin?"

"My brother was pulling a prank…" Hima sighs. "He was going to break the main generators underneath the Village and cut out everyone's lights. I tried to chase him and stop him, but even though I'm better than he is at the Flying Raijin, he kept ahead of me enough to actually throw one of papa's kunai and jam the machinery. I was dumb and I panicked. I tried going quickly to pull it out, but when I grabbed the kunai and tried to warp away, the generator surged. From there, our stories are similar, up to the point where I felt the fading, detected your meddling, and knew I had to stop you."

Boruto frowns and crosses his arms. For a moment, he looks guilty, almost ashamed, but quickly goes back to stubborn neutrality. "It was a good prank until you screwed it up… And it still worked."

Himawari continues, her attention directed at Kisaki and ignoring her brother. "I've been watching you while Boruto was recovering from foolishly tagging along with me to the present. I've seen the same things you've seen and understood the same things about time that you have. I've also 'transcended'. And you're wrongfully changing time. Before your arrival, time was fine and moving toward my… well, I'll use your terms… 'decisive moment'. After you began disrupting the present, _my_ existence began to destabilize, when it shouldn't have been."

Boruto lifts his fist and opens his mouth to say something, but as quickly as he does, Himawari reaches a hand across to cover his mouth and prevents him from interrupting. There's a grave look in Kisaki's eyes as she takes in the implications of their presence.

"Your actions _do_ have consequences, Kisaki!" Himawari starts again. "By trying to fool my mama and papa into thinking that they'll be happy without each other, you're not just silently erasing a different future. You're _killing _us. So what do you have to say for yourself, now that you're no longer special?"

For a very long few moments, the bridge was eerily silent. Sakura and Hinata both felt their worlds beginning to come apart at the seams. That nagging thought at the back of her head that something was missing from this picture finally bit her, and she felt herself foolish for single-mindedly avoiding this possibility, convinced by Kisaki that this wasn't possible, and eager for the life with Naruto that she saw.

Hinata, who's yet to say a word, looks torn, but determined. One side of her still feels nervously ominous about this situation. Conflict was inevitable, and there was no telling what the true consequences could be. She didn't want to be a prime component in what causes the rift between her friend, her lover, and herself, but she feels that just might be the role she's been thrust into. On the other hand, all the things that Himawari said to her in her home, about her family, about her and Naruto's never-ending love for each other and their children, about how that was the reality that _should_ happen… it resonated within her.

Naruto's confusion and tenuous emotional state could only get worse. His mind and his heart were going in loops, wringing themselves apart in a flurry of thoughts and feelings... He, above all others was shaken to his very core. His place was the most crucial. He had to _choose_.

They all look toward Kisaki, who began it all. The dark-blonde had her head bowed slightly and her eyes were stunned. She was clearly taken aback by this knowledge, and for several moments, there was hesitation on her face. Then her eyes darkened. Her mouth closed into a frown. She lifts her head and glares right at Himawari.

"I'm not going to let you get in the way of my mission…" she declares. "My family depends on it. The love between my parents is real. I've _seen_ it. In time, they'll love each other in the present like my parents love each other in my future."

Himawari's expression hardens as well. "This isn't how it was supposed to happen."

"My father was never one to resign to fate, and neither am I. My parents have been pulled apart, and I need to bring them back together. For their sakes and mine."

"We could say the _exact_ same thing…" Boruto snorts

The harsh, adversarial lightning that flashes between the three sets of glares is almost palpable. Hinata places a hand on her daughter's shoulder and finally speaks.

"Stop this, all of you," she says firmly. "This is what I _don't_ want to happen. You three are not the only ones involved in this mess, and you fighting will only tear all of us apart even more!"

Boruto looks unmoved by her mother's words and continues to glower at Kisaki, but the two girls relax their stares and look at their respective mothers. Sakura, relieved that Hinata spoke first, adds a voice as well.

"We all need a little while to cool these emotions… Too much is happening all at once, and it's not good for anyone's minds… We're at the doors of the onsen, already… I recommend we all split up in pairs and try to relax as much as we can… We'll return with clearer minds and try to work this out. I'll keep Kisaki, Hinata with Himawari, and Naruto with Boruto. Let's just… stay away from each other for a little bit. Does that sound alright?"

"No!"

"Yes."

"I'm with Dad? Hell yeah!"

Himawari and Hinata both give a light bow of the head in agreement with Sakura's suggestion, and Naruto's confuzzled mind breaks from his deep thoughts for long enough to listen and nod as well, but Kisaki gives her mother a frustrated look. "Mother, this wasn't..."

Sakura sighs and gives her head a shake. "Change of plans, Kisaki. We'll get everything straight, don't worry… Let's just get out of the cold."

All of them turn toward the open, welcoming doors of the bathhouse and springs. For a long moment, no one moves. Boruto looks around curiously and shrugs before going to throw his arm around Naruto's shoulder and leading him ahead.

"Boy, women sure are weird…" he says with a roll of his eyes, loud enough for Hima to catch it and glare at the back of his head as she takes her mother's hand and follows along. Sakura and Kisaki give each other one more look before they move forward and bring up the rear.

* * *

><p><strong>There you go! Sorry again for making you all wait for so long. T-T I'll try to get better, after I wash the smell of thrown fruit off of me. I don't know if I'm going to make one huge chapter with three POVs, or a chapter for each POV yet, but the next part of the story will be following the three different pairings around the onsen, basically.<strong>

**If you happen to leave a review, which I'd love, kindly tell me which you'd prefer: one BIG chapter, or three normal-sized chapters. If you decide not to review, but still want to weigh in, there's a poll up on my profile right now where you can vote! Thanks again for reading, everyone, and _KEEP_ reading, please. :D**

**~M.H.C~**

**May all your**

**Hearts beat with**

**Calamity!**

**Till next time!**


	9. Patience, Promises, Pain in the Ass

**The Blind Tigress reached over 11k views today! It's been less than a month. That's more than my most popular story took _two years_ to reach. Thanks for all the supports, the favorites, and the follows, every one! Almost every thirty minutes, I'm getting another alert from Fanfiction about someone who's favorited and followed this story, or me, and it's so awesome!**

**After reading the reviews and checking the poll, I've decided to consolidate the three POVs into one huge chapter. Little thing to keep in mind: all of the POVs are happening in about the same span of time. Don't confuse yourself by thinking that one happens right after the other. :P**

**Enjoy the absolute _longest_ chapter of this story so far!**

* * *

><p>The group of six had split apart shortly after buying their entry into the onsen and rinsing their bodies. Naruto and Boruto went toward the male springs, Hinata and Himawari stayed toward the indoor baths, and Sakura and Kisaki had wrapped themselves in towels and were heading on their way to the female springs. Sakura looks around and stops as she notices someone nearby, who happens to notice her as well.<p>

"Ino?"

"Sakura?"

Ino was clad loosely in a violet towel she'd brought with her and a simple pair of white sandals. Her incredibly lengthy hair, which she'd taken to wearing down to her thighs recently, was done up in an intricate swirling bun against her head, bound securely to keep her hair up and out of the water. She blinks her large blue eyes first at Sakura, then at the eerily similar-looking stranger beside her.

"I didn't think you'd be here," Sakura says. "I heard the onsen was a little busy today, but I wasn't expecting anyone else I knew. Are you here with anyone?"

Ino throws the washcloths in her hand over her bare shoulder and motions for Sakura and Kisaki to follow as she moves on toward the female springs. "Yeah, I came with Shikamaru. Who are _you_ with?" She peers at Kisaki

"Shikamaru? You two dating?"

"Ew, no," Ino says simply, scrunching her nose. "It's only just him because Choji's sick. Don't dodge the question, Sakura. Who's this? She's pretty, like you. A _lot_ like you. Such weird eyes, though…"

Ino gives Kisaki, who's still silent and irritable, a close eye up and down, and Sakura sighs as she thinks about how she should answer. She decides to go with the _only_ way she can answer. "Well, her name's Kisaki Uzumaki, and… she's my daughter from the future. Mine and Naruto's."

Sans the extensive lecture concerning the complex intricacies of time itself and time travel, Sakura begins to explain to Ino the gist of what's been happening over the past couple of days, as to how Kisaki arrived and her story. Ino listens silently as they walk, pushing open the doors leading out to the steamy female springs, especially warm and inviting today due to the looming chill higher in the air. The juxtaposition of a warm hot spring and snow in the trees and dampening the fences nearby paints a beautiful scene of sanctuary against the harsher conditions.

As Kisaki predicted, the springs were a bit more active than usual. Several chatting voices and laughs could be heard through the steam. The central spring held several women already, and a few more, some toweled, some not, walk casually about. Ino removes her own towel and tosses it over her empty shoulder without an instant of hesitation, causing Sakura to pause briefly and just look at her before continuing her synopsis.

The trio had found a small, unoccupied pool to claim near the divider, and Sakura unwraps her towel and folds it before setting it aside and climbing into the warm waters after Ino slides out of her sandals and dips herself in first. Kisaki takes a quick look around before she also lets her towel fall away, sitting on the edge of the pool and dipping her feet, instead of climbing all the way in.

Ino thoughtfully ponders on all of Sakura's words as she concludes her tale, then after a few moments, looks over at Kisaki.

"So, your father _really_ rhymed your name with itself?" she asks with an amused smirk.

Kisaki sighs and speaks for the first time since entering the onsen. "Yes. It's _hilarious_. Ha ha ha," she says with a deadpan look. "Can we not talk about it? Please?"

Ino smirks. "I like her. I'm guessing Naruto knows. Does he? I could've sworn I spotted him with Hinata and her sister that same day while I was out getting medicine."

Sakura looks away a moment. "Yeah. He knows."

"Is he dating Hinata? It seemed like it."

"I… don't know. She knows about Kisaki, too, and actually came this morning to break things off with Naruto so he could be with me and save Kisaki's existence, but… just a few minutes ago, outside the onsen, she came back. And she had her _own_ children from the future with her."

"Damn," Ino says with a raise of her brows, resting her arms against the edge of the pool. "That's a mess if I've ever heard one. What are you going to do about it?"

Sakura is silent for a long moment and sighs. "What _can_ I do? I want Kisaki to be born. I want her to keep the life that she showed me she had. _I_ want the life that she showed me she had. I love Naruto… and he loves me too, he says. But it's clear that he and Hinata love each other, too. No matter what happens, someone is going to end up losing and… fading. I definitely don't want Kisaki and Yokodaki to fade, and even though they see my daughter as their enemy, I don't want Himawari or Bolt to have to disappear, either."

"Mm…" Ino sinks deeper into the water, closing her eyes and stewing for several moments before lifting herself up and clasping her hands together. "Okay! Crazy idea. I'm not going to pretend I understand this time travel stuff, but just hear me out for a second. What if… Naruto gave _both_ of you your children? He sleeps with you and gives you Kisaki and Yokodaki, then he sleeps with Hinata and gives her Bolt and Himawari."

"Even if that worked, and I doubt it would, I would rather my mother be with someone else than for her to have to _share_ my father with another woman…" Kisaki says coldly as she sighs. "Naruto would have two women and two families he'd need to devote the same kind of attention to, and that's not fair to _anyone_ involved. One of two things will happen: Naruto will favor one family, leaving the other without a good husband and father. One family wins, the other family loses. Or, Naruto splits his attention evenly between his two families, leaving both families with only _half_ a husband and father. _Neither_ family wins. That kind of dissonance is more likely to just create a whole new third branch of alternate realities, rather than a stable marriage between mine and Himawari's. And in that case, _both _of us would disappear."

Ino deflates and sinks back into the water. "You raise some good points. Never thought of it quite like that."

Sakura sighs. "Hey, we're here to relax, aren't we? Discussing this time drama isn't relaxing me at all. What do you make of this weather, Ino?"

Kisaki tries to sigh the tension away from her shoulders as Sakura redirects the conversation. She tunes out for a few moments and peers around the hot spring, a strange feeling crawling along the back of her neck. Through the steam, she can't hear or see much, but she squints suspiciously anyway at every shadow and silhouette that passes, trying to discern why she feels so strange, like someone is watching her from somewhere…

Peering toward the entrance to the building, she lifts a brow as she notices a young blonde woman with a towel around her who was turning her head and beginning to walk away as soon as Kisaki took note of her. She frowns, but her attention is diverted again as she feels a pluck against the side of her head. Kisaki blinks and looks over at Ino.

"Jeez, you sure do have Naruto's attention span. I asked you a question. Have you seen it snow before where you come from?" Ino asks, lifting a brow.

Kisaki rubs her head and nods. "A few times. It's still very rare, and it's nice when it happens. I've never seen snow accumulate like this, though. What I've seen is very dusty and melts by the next week."

Ino taps her chin, eyeing Kisaki slowly up and down again and making the girl blush uncomfortably. "You're cute enough," Ino finally assesses. "You dating anyone whose future children depend on you to stay with?"

Kisaki's blush persists, but she furrows her brows and frowns. "That's not funny. …And… no."

"I think you're lying!" Ino grins deviously. "Don't be shy, Kisaki, I just want to get to know you better. You're related to Sakura, technically, so that makes you a friend of mine already. Now spill it."

Sakura seems interested as well, and Kisaki finally sighs. "I'm not lying when I say I'm not dating anyone. But… There's a guy who comes around the village about once a week, with dark eyes and a grave face, always with a hood over his head. He stays for a day, wandering the old Uchiha District, and then he leaves for another week. He's been doing that for three years. I… follow him sometimes, when he visits the village."

Ino's devious grin widens. "Oh ho ho, a crush on a mysterious stranger? Now _that_ sounds interesting. Have you talked to him yet?"

"He's talked to me. A little. He caught me following him one day and confronted me. I told him I was just curious about him and he went on his way afterwards without another word. I haven't been able to track him after he leaves the village, but he's pretty open about his presence when he's here. Sometimes we talk. He's very aloof and doesn't seem to care about much. I don't know how to feel about him, but he intrigues me more than normal…"

Sakura listens closely, unable to help but turn her mind briefly toward Sasuke, especially when Kisaki mentions that her 'crush' visits the 'Uchiha District' in her time. Sasuke… She closes her eyes and sighs, turning her mind away from him and listening to Ino laugh.

"While that's adorable and all, do you mean to tell me that you, a pretty little picture _and _the daughter of the Hokage in your time, doesn't have boys clamoring at your heels every hour of the day?"

"No. …Well… One." Kisaki rolls her eyes and sighs. "His name is Kotsu and he lives to harass me. Every chance he gets, he whistles at me and he likes to ruffle my hair and makes remarks about my body because he knows it annoys me. And no matter how many times I yell at him and punch him, even at full strength, he always recovers eventually, and he goes right back to screwing around. It… confuses me. And it's so annoying!"

As Sakura listens, she finds herself perplexed by how parallel her daughter's life seems to her own earlier years, stuck between two boys, one she liked, who hardly cared, and one she didn't like, who cared too much for her tastes… She sighs nostalgically and sets a hand gently on Kisaki's knee. The cross look on her daughter's face melts for a moment as she lifts a curious brow.

"Just keep being patient," Sakura says with a smile. "Everything will work itself out for you eventually, and you'll know what choice you need to make. I hope you're not writing off this Kotsu yet just because he annoys you. Naruto annoyed me more than you could imagine when we were kids in the Academy, and I hardly paid him any mind." She's tempted to say something about Sasuke, but bites her tongue.

Kisaki sighs gently and nods her head. "I understand just what you mean. I just-"

She stops again as that feeling returns. She _knows_ she's being watched now, and quickly turns her head. The strange blonde woman from before isn't quick enough this time, and she and Kisaki briefly lock eyes before the woman turns her head and pretends to look up and around at all the snowy trees.

"…Do you need something?" Kisaki calls to the woman, who tenses up and gives Kisaki an innocent look and a nervous chuckle.

"Who, me? Oh, no! Just… y'know… looking around is all! This place is pretty, y'know? I'm gonna go look at something else! Sorry if I bothered you! Ehehehe…"

The woman whirls on her heel and power-walks quickly in another direction, back into the cover of steam. Ino and Sakura both watch the strange person depart, tilting their heads oddly. Kisaki climbs out of the pool and retrieves her towel.

"…I'll be right back," she says, and she goes off after the woman as she re-wraps her towel.

**OoOoOoO**

Things were so tense at the faucets that they were making _other_ people nervous. As they cooled and rinsed themselves off quickly under the overhanging shower heads, Hinata almost couldn't stand to glance over at Himawari to see her and Kisaki glaring at each other from across the room. Other women who were moving in and out of the showers almost shivered with discomfort as they passed between their glares. As soon as Hinata was finished rinsing off and cleansing her body in preparation to bathe, she grabs Himawari by the arm and pulls her along, forcing her to break eye contact with Kisaki.

"Behave…" Hinata whispers as they move toward the racks to retrieve towels and washcloths to dry off, moving quickly past an equally-uncomfortable Sakura and a glowering Kisaki. This was the tensest moment yet for Hinata. Either one could throw a punch, call the other a bitch or a cunt, and spark a brawl that she wouldn't be able to quell and would just make things all the worse for everyone. She sighs with relief as nothing happens, and Kisaki merely offers one last sneer to Hima's challenging glare before the two are out of each other's sights.

"I'm glad you didn't do anything rash, Hima… But you really made me uncomfortable in there," Hinata says as she dons her towel.

"I know, and I'm sorry," she sighs. "I wasn't going to do anything… But I wasn't just going to look away, either."

Himawari looks at the floor as she walks, a bit of irritation on her face as she taps her fingers together. Hinata notices and reaches to gently steady her hands and stop her tapping before speaking. "You have a little stubborn streak in you, like Naruto."

"I don't back down against injustice," Hima says. "Neither does Boruto. You agree that what Kisaki is doing is wrong, right?"

"Himawari, I just don't want anyone to get hurt…" Hinata sighs as she and her daughter step into the indoor baths. The soothing scent of soap in the air clears Hinata's lungs, and she manages a soft smile before pointing at an unoccupied stool and basin. "Here. Take off your towel and sit. I'll help you bathe."

Hima looks around for a moment before slacking her shoulders and nodding. She drops her towel from her body and moves to sit, taking a deep breath in and out as she folds her towel in her lap, and shrugging her shoulders up slightly once she feels the warmth of a soapy cloth against her back.

"I understand why you're here. I understand why you don't like Kisaki, and I understand what's at stake…" Hinata starts calmly. "I agree with you. And the only reason I agree with you is because I love you already, and I want you to be born. I have no ill will against Kisaki or Sakura."

Hima stares ahead silently, closing her eyes and sighing as she's washed. Her mother's words resonate within her, and as much as she wants to argue, she can't, and continues to listen.

"I've said this before. The last thing I want is for you to hurt anyone on my behalf in this situation. Promise me right now, Himawari, that while you're here, you'll focus your efforts on getting Naruto's attention, and not attacking Kisaki directly."

Again, Himawari is silent, but Hinata never stops washing, staring at her daughter's back as she bathes her and waiting patiently for a response.

"Alright. I promise. But you have to promise me something, too," Himawari says, looking back at her mother, who stops washing and lifts a curious eyebrow. "…Promise me that you'll never just submit like you did when you tried to end things with Papa this morning. Don't just give in to the easiest option. You've been through _war,_ Mama. You above anyone else know what it's like to see an opponent in front of you and in yourself that is telling you to give up."

Himawari turns herself around on the stool so she can look right into her mother's eyes. "You know this. Sometimes… you have to fight to get the best for yourself. And you have to hurt people to do it, whether you hurt their feelings or their bodies. I know Sakura's your friend, and I know you believed what you said when you told her you'd still love her, and Naruto, and Kisaki, when you gave him up to her. But _I_ comes before _U_ for a reason. Sometimes, you need to put yourself first, especially when _everything_ is at stake."

Himawari lifts her hand to her own face, and Hinata blinks and stares. Barely, just barely, she can see Himawari's lavender-flecked eye through the hand that's covering it, and she gulps.

"That's why I stand against Kisaki. That's why she stands against me. That's why we hate each other right now. I promise that I'll focus more on Papa than on Kisaki. You promise me you'll fight for Papa if you have to. Will you do that for me?"

After asking such a hard thing of Himawari, Hinata saw no way she could refuse what her daughter was saying to her, and after a long few moments of reflection on her very true words, she smiles and nods. "Yeah… I promise."

Himawari gives her mother a toothy grin. "Don't you worry about Boruto. I'll try to keep him in line as best as I can. He loves to make trouble for everyone. It's a shame that his little sister has to be his caretaker. But what can you do?"

"What about me and Naruto?" Hinata asks as she removes her towel and trades places with Himawari, sitting on the stool while her back is gently scrubbed.

"You're both very busy most of the time. Papa is the Hokage, and he travels a lot. You're the head of the Hyuga clan. You handle your own affairs, and most of your free time is spent with me, training me to be able to lead the clan well in case something tragic happens and you're unable to."

This gives Hinata pause, and she falls silent for a few moments. "Is… that all I spend my free time on in your future? Guiding you to be a clan leader?"

"Well, you'd be guiding Boruto, but he officially relinquished the title of heir to me. He doesn't want to lead the clan eventually. He's a free spirit. But you knew that. I'd be honored to lead the clan one day, which is why I love the time we spend together, even if it's not always doing things like playing games or going out for walks or lunch at Ichiraku's or things like that."

Hinata nods her head, but does not comment, and instead offers a new topic. "What is life like for you two back in your homes? Things are still peaceful, I'd imagine?"

"Peaceful if you don't count Boruto's constant terror plots…" Himawari sighs. "Babies really started booming a few years after the end of the Last War. People felt safe raising children again. But unfortunately, a lot of the younger ones nowadays are starting to be influenced by my big brother's bad behavior… He calls them the 'Cult of Bolt', and they're like his little minions, following him around, causing a ruckus at the Academy whenever they can, pulling pranks and being a general nuisance to the public… I thought it was cute at first, until he got a bunch of them together, brought them into the house while everyone was away, and moved all of my stuff out of my room and onto the Inuzukas' lawn…"

Hinata laughs softly, much to her daughter chagrin. "It's not funny, Mama! Cats and dogs were crawling all over my things! And the smell was awful and wouldn't come out for a week!"

Hinata shakes her head. "If- …_When_ Boruto is born, I'll try to do a better job of disciplining him than it seems I've done in your time. I want to say it's a shame that you're stuck with him as he is, but I know you love your brother, despite his quirks."

Himawari nods and smiles.

"I just wonder…" Hinata murmurs. "How well is Naruto going to be able to handle him right _now_?"

Himawari stops scrubbing.

**OoOoOoO**

Naruto stood outside the faucets waiting for Bolt and wondering just how long it took to use the bathroom. Standing out in the open air like this with only a towel was beginning to feel uncomfortable. It wasn't quite warm enough where he was standing, and walking around did nothing to ease him. To make matters worse, with nothing else to distract him, he was forced to think about how screwed-up this situation with him and the two most important living women in his life was getting. Hinata and her jeopardized children on one hand, and Sakura and her jeopardized children on the other.

In Naruto's life, the decision was almost always pretty clear. Do the right thing. Forget what anybody else says about Sasuke and save him. His friends go first above anyone else. He's never encountered a challenge quite as surreal and _dire_ as this one, having to choose which of his potential families would be left to fade from reality… Having to choose whose heart to break… Naruto sighs. Things would be much simpler if he just had something he could punch in order to keep _everyone_ happy…

"Hey, Dad!"

Naruto is jerked from his thoughts, flinching and blinking as he turns and sees Boruto. He stares for a moment with an itching perplexity at his future son, whom Naruto is slightly unsettled to see is just about as old and tall as he is, like Kisaki. Bolt and Kisaki in particular could easily be confused as his siblings rather than his children, and something about that thought made his mind ache.

"Sorry I took so long," the young man says without any further explanation, pointing toward the hall leading out toward the springs. "It's that way, right?"

Naruto nods, starting ahead and folding his hands behind his head as he walks. "So… Yeah. Women are weird."

"But Mom's the best kind of weird, right? Riiiiight?" Bolt grins and elbows his father, who sighs.

"Bolt, I really really don't want to think about that right now, y'know? Like Sakura suggested, let's just… take this time to relax or something. What am I like in your world?"

"You're getting old," Bolt says with a shrug. "Or at least, that's the excuse you give me for not chasing after me and messing my day up like you did when I was an Academy student and not an amazing Chunin."

"Messing your day up?"

"Yeah! The whole village lives in fear of me and my pranks! My little sister's the only one who still tries to do anything about it. You're busy in other lands with other the other Gokage maintaining the peace. Mom's busy being the boss of the clan, and missions are boring. Always some rogue troublemakers stealing chickens or getting cats out of trees or something, y'know… So I took it upon myself to start spicing up everyone's lives!"

Bolt grins, then pouts. "It used to be really annoying because you'd always be one step ahead with your dumb Flying Raijin. Then one day, you just… stopped."

Naruto senses something in Bolt's voice, but doesn't comment at first, just taking in the intoxicating sights and smells of the hot springs. He could almost forget all the crazy things he had to deal with. He'd certainly forgotten how amazing these springs were, and since the onsen's renovation, it was even _better_.

The main spring was heavily occupied, and Naruto really didn't feel like being around a lot of other people. He spots a nearly empty spot near the divider, where someone was leaning casually, and as Naruto gets closer, he's surprised to find he recognizes him.

"Shikamaru! Hey, fancy seeing you here!"

He'd propped himself against the thick wooden divider with his eyes closed, but at the sound of Naruto's voice, he opens one eye, staring thoughtfully at Naruto and Bolt.

"Hey," he says casually. "That _can't_ be someone who's related to you."

Shikamaru lifts a brow at Bolt, who crosses his arms. Naruto chuckles and climbs into the spring, folding his towel on top of his head. "He is, technically. This is Bolt. He's… my son from the future."

Naruto watches Shikamaru's face, surprised to see that there's no change. The young genius continues to wear his neutral expression as he examines Bolt, then Naruto.

"Interesting."

"…I kinda expected you to be a bit more surprised," Naruto says, tilting his head.

Shikamaru shrugs his shoulders and looks up briefly at the grey cloudy sky. "I've stared the end of the world in the eye, Naruto. I don't really get surprised anymore. What's he doing here?"

Naruto looks briefly at Bolt, who's standing still and just staring at the water. "Well… It's complicated. Bolt, aren't you getting in?"

"…Nah, I'm good," he says. "And I'm here with my sister to make sure my Mom and Dad actually make us. We're fading, and we've got to stop it!"

Shikamaru nods. "Hinata, then? You've got her cheeks and the hair length."

Naruto and Bolt both nod, and Naruto lifts a curious brow. "Seems a little odd that you're here by yourself, Shikamaru."

"Ino's on the other side of this wall. I hear her."

"Oh! You and Ino are here together? You two a thing now?"

Shikamaru looks at Naruto again and frowns. "What? Hell no, are you crazy? That'd be like dating my mother and a bratty older sister in the same body. We've been planning this, and Choji was supposed to be here, too, but he's a bit sick, so he told us to go on ahead."

Naruto blinks. "Gee, sorry. Just seemed like you two are close, is all."

"We _are_ close. Too close for a romantic relationship." Shikamaru explains. "The Ino-Shika-Cho bond is a delicate, brotherly balance between our three clans. Getting involved with Ino like that would screw all that up. I love Ino like a sister, not like _that._ And then there's the fact that she's almost _exactly_ like my mother. Nope. Wouldn't touch that with a ten-foot pole."

Naruto gives this a long moment of thought. "So… would you say I… _shouldn't_ date a teammate, or someone who's like my mother?"

Shikamaru raises a brow. "That only applies to mine. My mother is a raptor. I wouldn't recommend _anyone_ date someone like my mother. And Ino and I are closer than any normal pair of teammates are. We have to be. But… Hinata's not your teammate. And she's the opposite of my mother. What are you getting at, Naruto?"

He sighs, and with a few unneeded interjections from Bolt, explains to Shikamaru everything that's going on, in the hopes that after a few moments of thought, he'd have the answer, like he always did.

After hearing all the details, Shikamaru frowns and closes his eyes a moment. He brings his hands together in front of him and cupping his fingers against each other. Naruto waits in anticipation, looking insistently at Shikamaru when he finally opens his eyes.

"Sounds like you're fucked, man."

Naruto grimaces, groaning and sinking into the water until he's submerged, sighing out frustrated bubbles before surfacing again. "I knew that already, though! What would _you_ do in this situation, Shikamaru?"

"I don't work with impossible odds, Naruto. There's no chance that _I'd_ be stuck in this situation, since there's only one woman I know that I could tolerate having a child with. I'm not blessed with your appeal. It's a real drag that you're stuck between two rocks and a hard place, but this is one thing I can't offer advice for. I do wish you luck, though."

Shikamaru gives Naruto a nod before pushing off the wall and leaving into the steam.

"Pfft!" Bolt rolls his eyes as Shikamaru leaves. "What does he know? You know in your heart there's only one good choice, Dad! Forget about Kisaki! Hima and I are much better!"

Naruto stares at Bolt for a moment, unable to shake the feeling that something was just off about him somehow, like he wasn't fully there. "You're not helping, Bolt. And why haven't you gotten in the water yet? Are you shy about public bathing?"

"Of course not! I'm a grown man! I don't get shy!" Bolt immediately denies. Naruto shrugs and climbs out of the water, retrieving his towel and wrapping him around himself again.

"Okay, then. Whatever you say. Stay right here a moment. I'll just be right- HA!"

As Naruto begins to walk past Bolt, he quickly turns and pushes him into the water.

"AH, NO! HOT HOT HO-" Bolt wails as he flails for a half a moment before suddenly vanishing in a puff of smoke.

"A shadow clone! Fucking knew it!" Naruto exclaims, slapping his forehead and looking around. That's why he took so long after the rinse. He snuck off and made a clone to send in his stead to try to fool him. "Bolt!" he calls out as he rushes back toward the building. "Where the hell did you go?!"

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><p><strong>There you have it! Things will begin to consolidate again in the next chapter. I'll be taking a little bit of a breather, so I may not get to updating for a couple of days.<strong>

**Writing this was incredibly fun, as I suspect you can tell. Thanks, as always, for reading, and leave a review if you enjoyed it! I eagerly await your thoughts!**

**~M.H.C~**

**May all your**

**Hearts beat with**

**Calamity!**

**Till next time!**


	10. Switched Characters

**So sorry! It's been a week today, hasn't it? T-T I'm approaching the end of my first semester of college, and I'm freaking out because I need to do well on my finals and exits if I'm going to keep my scholarship. That means STUDYING STUDYING STUDYING. There might be a little drawl like this between chapters until winter break, which is in two weeks.**

**For someone who asked, whose review I can't get my hands on at the moment, Bolt is about 17-18. About as old as Naruto at this time. I think I mentioned that somewhere in this chapter, but I can't remember for certain. If I didn't, there it is.**

**Also, Timelines and Heartstrings reached over 10k views last week! Hooray!**

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><p>Bolt went in knowing he would be marching into a lion's den. He was sure of the danger involved, and knew how fucked he'd be if he was caught, but was willing to go the distance for the sake of surveillance. Kisaki was obviously a threat, a danger to their very existence, and if Himawari was going to be a buzzkill and not go straight for the throat, then the least Bolt can do is try to keep an eye on her in case she's planning anything malicious.<p>

After his flawless transformation into a beautiful blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman and quick feet get him past any suspicious eyes in the main room of the onsen, he takes a deep breath at the doors to the female springs, steels his nerves, and steps right in. The blast of hot air warms his face, and he squints into the steam, ears perked and eyes alert.

Bolt almost turns his head at the sound of approaching footsteps, but resists the urge, and just casually turns as if he's going to walk in the same direction he hears the approach. He looks at her quickly as he walks forward. Just a woman, glimmering and dripping with moisture with her towel over her shoulders. Dark hair, clearly not Kisaki's color. He doesn't give her a second look, and keeps moving, taking note of the many voices, splashes, playful yelps, and giggling sounds coming from the central spring.

Stopping not far from where he'd started near the doors leading back into the building, Bolt decides that it's not worth the risk getting close to that big spring. Instead, he closes his eyes, breathes in, and then holds his breath. He forms a couple of hand signs before opening his eyes again and glaring into the steam. Slowly, his pupils fade away and his irises expand. Veins bulge on the sides of his head, and he activates the Byakugan with what appears to be a great effort.

His powerful, yet shaky gaze pierces the fog and gives him a glimpse at those sitting in the spring. As quickly as possible, he scans each of their faces, and after a few moments, his eyes throb and he exhales, forced to stop. Bolt grimaces and rubs his eyes. He didn't see Kisaki, or her mother, and he was sure he'd gotten to everyone there. Huffing, he did note three people sitting in a small pool near the divider a little ways away, but he wasn't able to see their faces before fatigue forced him to deactivate his Byakugan. He leans over the porch fence and squints in that direction as the steam rolls past. One of them has pink hair. Another, very light blonde.

Bolt finds his target and stares at the back of her strawberry-blonde hair for a moment, before gazing at the heated sweat collecting on her bare shoulders and letting his eyes run a slow trail down the curve of her back. She didn't have the slenderest figure in the world, but Bolt still can't help but bite his lip and blush as stares for a moment at that ass peeking out at him and- Wait.

Bolt just barely manages to notice her starting to turn her head, and he quickly turns away as well and walks off and around for a few moments, inwardly thumping himself on the head.

"Stop," he tells himself, frowning. "She's the enemy. Focus…" After a flustered moment to get himself together, he brings his mind back to the mission at hand, marching past a couple of buxom, towelless women and staring at the ground as he collects his thoughts. He wasn't close enough. He needs to hear what she's saying. Even if it's nothing dire, anything she has to say could be important, if for nothing else but to get Himawari riled up enough to drop the restraints and give him permission to take her out. Without missing, this time.

He starts a slow little pace around the perimeter of the springs until he arrives close by to that little spring again. He stares at Kisaki for a long moment, edging closer and closer to their spring, to better hear her words and to better see her soft legs and watch the way she idly lifts her hand and brushes her hair behind her ear without noticing.

Bolt is helplessly perplexed, and catches about every other word she says as he spends more time focusing on her, and not what she has to do with his mission here. His mind wrestles with him, His focus blurs, and he notices her turning her head again an instant too late. He locks eyes with her, and knows that he's screwed. He gulps and quickly turns to look at… something. The trees. Maybe she won't care?

"…Do you need something?"

The taste of Bolt's heart leaping into his throat is bitter enough to make him seize briefly with discomfort, but he quickly fixes his face and puts on a blatant smile before turning to look at Kisaki, hoping that she can't see his blush from here.

"Who, me? Oh, no! Just… y'know… looking around is all! This place is pretty, y'know? I'm gonna go look at something else! Sorry if I bothered you! Ehehehe…"

He turns on his heel and trots off quickly, swearing at himself in his head as he panics. He fucked himself up. _How? Why?_ Why is he feeling the way he is? He's compromised. Even _more_ so by the fact that he was found out and the decoy clone he sent with his dad was dispelled. He looks toward the entrance back to the main building, but before he can make a break in that direction, he gasps as he feels an iron grip on his shoulder.

As unfocused as he is, just that sudden jump is enough to break his transformation, becoming nothing more than a man wearing a towel in a womanly fashion. He turns his head to stare right into Kisaki's cold, angry eyes. Bolt's face goes from blushing red to flushed pale, and he flails his arms helplessly.

"Wait, wait! I can explain!"

"Please do," Kisaki growls, squinting. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't beat your ass flat."

Bolt gulps and looks around. Sakura and the other girl that Kisaki was with, likely Ino, see the scene and begin to rise from their pool as well, and others around the main pool have spotted the altercation as well, watching with wide eyes of surprise. He stares at Kisaki and only gives it a moment of planning. Quickly making a hand sign, he produces a shadow clone positioned directly behind her, which pounces at Kisaki, curls its arms underneath hers, and interlocks its hands against her nape, yanking her into a grapple and forcing her to release the real Bolt with a gasp.

"Bye!" he yells as he sprints madly for the entrance, and Kisaki growls and squirms briefly in the clone-Bolt's surprising firm grip.

"Let go of me, you little _fuck!_ Agh!" she yells, flustered by the pressure against her neck. She grits her teeth and snorts.

"Ha-CHA!" she yells, forcing her head back with all her strength before twisting her body sideways and aiming her shoulder the ground. Clone-Bolt yelps as his grip breaks and he goes flying over Kisaki's shoulder and lands flat on his back. The clone is quickly finished off with a swift punch in the face. Her towel loosens as a result of all her movement, but she hardly notices, glaring at Bolt as he runs and squinting at the mark she successfully left when she grabbed his shoulder. Just as Sakura and Ino catch up, Kisaki vanishes in a yellow flash, but she leaves her towel behind.

Bolt hisses as he feels his other clone vanish as well, so close to the onsen doors. Grinning desperately, he reaches for the doors to pull them open, but at that instant, a naked Kisaki materializes in a flash in front of him, and instead of the hard wood of a sliding door, Bolt gets a tight handful of the soft globe of Kisaki's left breast.

"You- AHN~!" Kisaki shrieks as she's unwittingly molested, and Bolt can only stare dumbfounded as he shoves a surprised Kisaki against the doors. Before either of them can react further, the doors swings open and something slams into Kisaki's back, knocking her forward into Bolt and sending them both tumbling off the porch and back onto the wet stone of the springs. Bolt lands on his back, and Kisaki falls on top of him, her lips smashing against his.

Pain rings through Bolt's teeth. His hand is crushed between his chest and hers, and he's lost in a daze. He can barely comprehend the weight of shivering, wet, warm flesh on top of him, and groans against Kisaki's lips. Without meaning to, he grabs her ass, trying to steady himself and get a grip on reality, and rolls over a moment later to switch places so that he's looming over her, and he can breathe again.

Once Bolt's vision comes back into focus, all he can stare at is the stunned, blushing face of Kisaki underneath him. Time seems to freeze around them, and his blue eyes stare down her body, at her heaving chest, the quickly-blooming hand-shaped bruise on her breast, the way his hips are settled between her thighs…

"BORUTO! What are you doing?!"

Himawari's voice snaps him out of his trance, and Bolt rises quickly, turning toward the entrance, where he sees his sister and his mother standing there in robes, eyes wide, mouths agape. Both of them lift a hand to their eyes and wave the other hand in Bolt's direction, loudly demanding he put his towel on. Bolt quickly looks around and sees it draped over Kisaki's leg. He grabs it and throws it around his body before sprinting past the two women at the door. Kisaki continues to lay there, stunned, until Sakura and Ino also arrive at the doors to help her up and wrap her back in her towel.

Kisaki blinks and stares at Himawari, who stares right back. Both of them have flustered looks on their faces, and neither of them know what to say to the other. Finally, Kisaki looks away first, and turns to Sakura.

"I-I'm… going to bathe," she says simply, trying to return to her cool and simple demeanor as best as she can as she moves past Hima and Hinata, her hands on her cheeks as she's unable to cool her blush.

**OoOoOoO**

Naruto scratches his head as he steps out back into the main hall of the onsen, looking around and trying to feel out for Bolt's presence. Whatever he needed to try and fool him with a clone for, he suspected it wasn't good. Just like everyone else, Naruto felt the situation he was in was entirely too fragile to just let his brash, reckless future kid run around unsupervised…

"Bolt!" he tries calling again. Before he can say anything more, Bolt rushes past, leaving the women's springs, and Naruto blinks.

"I'm done for today!" he calls back at Naruto quickly as he ducks into the male showers. Moments later, Kisaki also emerges from the women's springs, her face bright red. She doesn't even look at Naruto, and power-walks quickly into the female baths without a word.

Naruto can only stare in speechless confusion, raising his hands as Sakura and Hinata also leave the springs with Hima and Ino behind them.

"Don't hit me! I didn't know he snuck off! You know how hard it is to tell a shadow clone from the real thing? What'd he do anyway?"

"Just… don't worry about it," Himawari sighs. "We should… probably leave soon."

**OoOoOoO**

After saying their goodbyes to Ino, washing up and getting redressed and bundled up again, the group step back out into the snow, with Bolt and Kisaki staying as far away from each other as possible. Naruto walked between Sakura and Hinata, and Himawari walks with arms crossed, glaring at her brother and over at Kisaki occasionally.

"Well, that wasn't very relaxing…" Naruto sighs with his hands in his pockets.

"It _was,_" Kisaki grumbles, scratching her arm as she glances over at Bolt and Himawari. The two girls meet eyes and don't break contact until Hinata sets a hand on Hima's shoulder and shakes her head. Kisaki huffs out through her nose and instead lifts a brow at her mother's thoughtful expression. "Something the matter?"

Sakura tilts her head. "I'm just… thinking about what Ino suggested. About… Naruto having both of us. Are you sure it wouldn't work?"

Everyone else stops to look at Sakura. Naruto blinks in surprise, and Kisaki frowns. "Mother, that's not what you want to do. I explained this already."

"Explain it to me," Naruto says, and Kisaki pinches the bridge of her nose.

"…In the springs, Ino brought up a suggestion for a solution to this dilemma. She suggested that you, Father, have both Mother and Hinata's children. Ino thought that two women sharing you might work."

Hinata's lips pull into a tight line as she watches Naruto's expression shift from confused to thoughtful as well. Kisaki's frown deepens as she speaks further. "I can't allow this, Father. It's too risky. There's no guarantee that it'll work the way you and Mother and Ino seem to think it'll work! Ino doesn't understand how time works, and even though I've explained it, you won't fully understand it, either, because you haven't seen what I've seen firsthand."

"There's no middle ground, Papa…" Himawari adds with a sigh. "You have to-"

"Yes, there is. Stop telling me there isn't," Naruto interrupts, squeezing his eyes shut and rubbing his head. "You two keep telling me there's only two options… But Kisaki herself said there's infinite possibilities. There's a storm of branches up in the future, you said. Why can't one of them have me doing the only humane thing?"

"Because that branch might not be my branch and I'll still vanish," Kisaki says, furrowing her brows. "It might not be Himawari's, and she'll still vanish. There's a chance it's not either of ours. And then we'll _both_ vanish. Listen to yourself, Father. Whatever chance there is that being a husband and father to two women and two sets of children is the ticket to your fairytale ending… is it worth risking all of our lives?"

All the frustration and confusion Naruto has been containing and trying to stave off since the moment Kisaki told him she was his daughter begins to bubble to the surface, but he bites his tongue and paces forward. Sakura gives him a worried look, and Bolt, after watching his father suffer in his own mind for a moment, finally speaks.

"Dad. Just… say what you want to say. We're adults. We can take it."

Naruto stops and turns, looking at the snow. "Kisaki, Hima, Bolt… I know you mean well for yourselves and your futures. But the way you've been changing my life and the way I think since you all arrived… it's gotten out of control. And I'm nearly sick of it." He closes his eyes. "I feel like I'm not going to be able to go anywhere or do anything without either set of my children telling me it's the wrong thing to do because it jeopardizes their mother conceiving them on Christmas. I can't live like that! And I know it sounds awful, but I have to say it! The way I've been feeling all this time makes me wonder whether it'll even matter if both of you vanish in favor of the option that might just make everything better anyway! If both of you vanish, or just one vanishes and the other stays, all that means is that there'll just be different versions of you that grow up instead."

Bolt's face goes graven and Himawari looks a bit taken aback. Kisaki looks down at the snow for a long moment before looking back up at her father, her eyes teary.

"Then… forget about us for just a second. Just a second," Kisaki says, raising her hands. "Even if we all stay put and everything turns out alright, and our own realities stay on our own branches somehow… what about _you? _Fath- …Naruto… As much as it may seem like it, this is not a romantic fantasy. It won't just end with a double marriage that everyone happily approves of before you all live happily ever after. If you go through with this, you will have to spread yourself between two women. Think about that. Is that really fair?"

Naruto frowns. "I love Hinata and I love Sakura. As hard as it might be, I know I'll be able to be there for both of them… It won't be my first difficult challenge. I can make it work."

"N-Naruto, you say that now, but-"

"No."

Everyone's eyes turn to Hinata, who interrupted everything with her firm one-worded declaration. Her gloved hands are tensed nearly into fists, and while there's nervousness in her blank eyes, there's conviction as well. "N-No. I won't allow this. Yesterday… I might have been alright with agreeing to something like this, but today in the baths, I learned something from my daughter. I've overcome some difficult challenges, too, and I'm not going to give up and go for the easy way out anymore. I _can't_."

Naruto blinks at Hinata and his frown deepens. "What are you saying?"

Hinata steps forward and grabs Naruto by the arm, pulling him away from the rest of the group. "We'll be right back," she calls back to everyone else.

Hinata doesn't stop until she's out of sight, standing with Naruto in a shaded alley. "Naruto, I'm saying that I won't share you with Sakura. I'm going to be honest with you and myself, and I'm going to tell you right now that _I want you_. And if you still want any part of me, you'll drop this discussion about having both of us…"

Naruto furrows his brows and sets his hands on Hinata's shoulders. "Now _you're_ making me have to choose, too? What the hell, Hinata? I thought you wanted me to be happy?"

"I do. But I want _me_ to be happy, too," Hinata says, shrugging his shoulders off. "You may think you can handle it. Sakura might think that it'll be alright, but… I know in my heart, Naruto, that I will _never_ be happy knowing that there's another woman in our bed… that you're obligated to show the same kind of affection and attention that… t-that's supposed to be all _mine._ Naruto, how am I supposed to love you with all of my heart when I'll only have half of yours?"

Naruto turns away a moment and runs his hands through his hair. "But Kisaki…"

Hinata looks hurt for a moment, the same sorrowful look in her eye that Kisaki had a moment ago. "You just said, Naruto… that it doesn't matter whether or not the children that are in front of you, pleading for your attention, live or die. Since we'll just make them again anyway. That is the most cynical…"

"Hinata, I was-"

"…heartless, incon…"

"You know I didn't mean…"

"…siderate, uncharac…"

"…it, Hinata. Stop."

"…teristic thing that I've ever heard come out of your mouth."

The two of them talk over each other, both of them furling their brows in frustration. Naruto's voice rises a tad, but Hinata's remains calm and level.

"I know that, and I'm sorry I said it," Naruto says, frowning at Hinata. "You know how frustrated I am right now."

"Of course. And I think this frustration of yours is making you want to reach for the easy way out. The one that you think will make everyone happy. Instead of the path you want that leads to the one you love. Once again, Naruto… we've switched character."

Naruto gulps and his heart thrums. He knows exactly what she's talking about. Sighing, he looks away, but Hinata turns his face back to look into her eyes. She stares into him for a long couple of moments before leaning in to kiss him softly on the lips for a couple of seconds before pulling away and leaving the alley.

While Naruto stays where he is for a few moments, Hinata returns to the group. "For what it was worth, I had fun today, Sakura. Kisaki. Thank you for this. Naruto should be back in a moment. Perhaps… in a couple of days, we can try something different all together? We should meet some time later to decide, Sakura."

She looks down at her children for a moment before starting down the road back toward her own home. She looks down at Himawari, then up at Bolt. "I think I've pushed this aside for long enough. I have to explain myself to my father."

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><p><strong>Hope you enjoyed it! Not sure when the next chapter will be out, but I'll start working on it immediately and see how far I get. There might be a little lemon in the next chapter. Kind of. We'll see how it goes!<strong>

**~M.H.C~**

**May all your**

**Hearts beat with**

**Calamity!**

**Till next time!**


	11. Frustration

**I'm so sorry it's been almost a month since I last updated. D: I've been explosively ill over the past week and a half, and writer's block is being a bit annoying as of late. I have ideas for other Naruto stories in mind, and they're getting in the way of me finishing this one! I don't want to say I'm close to the end of Timelines and Heartstrings yet, but in my mind, the conclusion of the story is in view.**

** The climax is not too far off at all, and I hope I'm able to pull it off right, because it's a pretty big shift. I realized a while ago that it was a pretty sudden shift, so I've been trying to ease toward it and allude to it occasionally in chapters. When it does come around, I can only hope it still doesn't come across as too sudden.**

"What did she say to you?"

Naruto closes his eyes and sighs as he walks along toward his home in much the same way they were walking toward the onsen, him standing on one side, Sakura on the other, and Kisaki between them. For the moment, the snow had let up, as if it was weary of the windy roller coaster it was helplessly set upon, and just shut down entirely.

"She told me what she told us all." Naruto says, looking over at Sakura. "She's not going to accept sharing me with you. She told me to… take the path toward who I love and not go for the easy way out. And she scolded me. For what I said about it not mattering if you disappeared. I'm sorry, Kisaki."

The girl walks with her hands in her pockets, nodding at her father before looking straight ahead again. "It's alright. What are you thinking about now?"

Naruto shakes his head. "Everything. I'm still confused about what happened in the onsen between you and-"

"Don't worry about it."

"Please don't mention it."

Sakura and Kisaki both speak quickly at the same time, neither of them comfortable with how everything happened. Naruto rolls his eyes. "Jeez… Well, Hinata left, and… it's really starting to seem like we all need a break from each other, already."

"Break? I don't need a break," Sakura says, rolling her shoulders. "I planned on spending the day with you. The day's not over yet, and I'm still here."

Naruto looks over at her again for a long moment, and as they meet eyes, Sakura notes that the heartbreak in his stare has been replaced with weary frustration. "I think… _I_ need the break, Sakura. I know you and Kisaki wanted us to spend the day together but the way everything's gone, I really think that what I need is time alone. _Actual_ time alone."

Sakura frowns and looks down for a moment, but blinks in surprise as Naruto takes her by the shoulders and pulls her into him for a long hug.

"I'll see you around," he murmurs before vanishing in a yellow flash.

Sakura stands for a moment to blink slowly, turning her head to Kisaki as the other girl groans.

"We're breaking him… I didn't mean for things to happen like this!" Kisaki runs her fingers frustratedly through her hair. "Some things might have changed… but it would've been fine! Those two showing up have started a battle I didn't think we'd have to fight, and it's killing all of us. I wish that they'd just… _leave_."

Kisaki clenches her fists and glowers briefly in the direction that Himawari and Bolt went off with their mother. She sighs a wintry breath and turns back to Sakura. "If this spiral continues, no one is going to be happy no matter what happens. Least of all Father. He's trapped in the middle of this whirlpool and we're all just going down in circles."

The stress and frustration and weariness is as clear on Kisaki's face as it was on Naruto's. Sakura reaches to set a hand on her daughter's shoulder. "You're still here, Kisaki. There's still hope. I don't know how it's gonna work, but… we'll figure something out. Come on... Let's go home."

Kisaki looks down at her hand for a moment, and grimaces as she realizes that her skin has once again taken on the slightly-faded pallor it had when she first arrived in this time. She looks at her mother again and sighs. "I'll meet you there. I'm going to go for a little bit of a run first…"

Sakura nods and watches Kisaki leap up and across the roofs before continuing herself along the main village path.

**OoOoOoO**

Hinata stares up at her father's stern, curious expression, and Himawari shifts nervously at her side as they and Bolt wait for Hiashi to take in and process the tale he's been told. Hinata remains calm and quiet, but her brows furrow slightly after a long moment of silence, with no response from her father other than a soft sigh as he closes his eyes. Eventually, Hinata speaks up again.

"I know this all must sound very strange, father… But it is the truth, and it is more important to me than anything that I carry on to save my children. Please understand…"

"I would have a hard time believing you if I did not see these strangers now with my own eyes," Hiashi says with a frown. "This is concerning. As the heiress-apparent again, it is far from appropriate for you to conceive before you are head of the clan, and especially before you are wed."

"I am aware, father… But I think I am ready. Ready to finally lead the clan. You've taught me much, and I have come far. With your support and guidance, _everyone's_ support and guidance, I know I will do well…"

"You think? I do not think deceit and circumvention of authority are ideal traits for a leader of the clan, Hinata."

Her throat tightens, and she blinks. For a moment, Hinata considers asking her father what he means, but she already knows exactly what he means. She sighs. "Hanabi told you?"

"No. I am simply not a fool," Hiashi responds firmly. "That morning, I was at your door for several moments before I decided to test it. I heard."

Hinata looks away, then sighs. "I-I'm sorry, father. I…"

Hiashi shakes his head. "Leading the clan in my place is all but out of the question right now. The issue of these children and your mission is one I will have to give critical thought. When I-"

"Uh, gramps?" Bolt interrupts, raising and waving his hand. "Since one is kinda more urgent than the other anyway, d'ya think we can get an answer about the mission byyyy tomorrow, maybe?"

Bolt grins innocently, but Hiashi frowns deeply and squints. Before Hinata can gulp and speak, Hima pinches the bridge of her nose, reaching across Hinata to grab Bolt by the ear.

"We're sorry, grandfather," she sighs simply before Hima warps away in a yellow flash with her whining brother in tow, leaving Hinata alone with her father.

"That will be all, Hinata," Hiashi says pinching the bridge of his own nose much like Himawari a moment ago. "We will talk more about your issues once I've had time think. In the meanwhile, occupy yourself with monitoring your children and their behavior. Keep them here. Train with them, if you feel able. But due to their reckless natures and the danger they appear to pose to this apparent _other_ woman from the future, I cannot permit them to leave this building any longer. Let them know this. If you wish for me to support this life, Hinata… keep your children in line."

Hinata nods her head and smiles, standing and bowing to Hiashi. "Thank you, father… I promise I will. I won't fail."

Quietly, she repeats this to herself under her breath as she turns to exit the quiet chamber.

**OoOoOoO**

A weary sigh leaves Naruto's lips as the image of Sakura's face is replaced instantaneously with the sight of the special kunai he hangs on the wall of his room. The bitter cold of the outside is replaced quickly with warmth, comfort, and familiarity. Naruto remains still for a long few moments, longing for the time when this was the norm, when he could rest easy knowing that the world was on the right path, thanks to the efforts of himself and the entirety of the ninja world.

The energy he thought was restored from the springs hemorrhages from his body, and he collapses backwards on his bed as he's forced to contend once again with the fact that nothing will ever be normal or simple in his life. He runs a hand across his face and stares up at the ceiling. He closes his eyes, hoping he can find some calm and solace in his dreams, but despite his best efforts, he cannot sleep. At best, he drifts into unconsciousness before being eventually awakened by an ominous ringing sound, somewhere in the back of his mind.

Naruto shivers. Even with the amount he has to deal with already, he still can't help but feel that something important is still missing, hiding… waiting.

**OoOoOoO**

Himawari sits with a cross face and crossed legs on Hinata's bed, while Bolt stands against the wall with his hands balled into fists and a scowl on his face, yelling at each other. Both turn their heads as Hinata swings open her door with a look of annoyance on her face.

"I'm really sorry for what Boruto said in there, mama," Hima says. "He's the same way at home. No respect for elders and always messing things up!"

"Hey, shut up! It was an important question!" Bolt responds with a glare at his younger sister. "And since when were _you_ in charge of _me_? In case you forgot, I was born first!"

"This is _my_ mission! _You're_ the tagalong! I told you not to get in my way and you had to come and try to hog the spotlight again, as _always!"_

"Himawari… Bolt…" Hinata tries to interject quietly, but her voice is lost amidst the escalating voices of her children.

"And if you're such a grown man, then stop acting like a punk kid!"

"At least I've hit my growth spurt! At this rate, you're gonna _look_ like a punk kid the rest of your life!"

"I may be smaller, but I can kick your ass!"

Hinata can literally feel the temperature rising in the room. Himawari seems to be pouring heat from her body somehow, and the arguing has devolved past any particular subject. The two are simply trading verbal blows. Biting her lip, she starts to step between them.

"B-Both of you stop! This is not what you shou-"

Even as Hinata tries to raise her voice, the two continue to quarrel, edging Hinata aside to get in each other's faces.

"Are you serious? You can't even make a Rasengan, and you think you're stronger than me?"

"You can barely use the Byakugan, Boruto, and you're supposed to be a _Hyuga?" _Himawari growls, finishing with a sound slap across Bolt's face.

Bolt grits his teeth and responds instantly with a quick punch to the cheek that sends Himawari backwards. Pushed to the edge, Hinata switches from words to actions, and before the two of her children can rush at each other and brawl, she disables the both of them with several quick, well-placed Gentle Fist strikes that cause the two of them to seize up and fall over in pain.

The message is clear enough. Hinata doesn't even have to say anything, and just crosses her arms and glares as the two of them hiss in pain and shamefully collect themselves as best as they can, crawling away from each other before rising to their feet and clutching their aching cores.

"This is unreal," Hinata says once they're quiet and giving her their full attention. "What has gotten into you two? Are you regularly violent with each other like this?"

Hinata gestures to the handmark on Bolt's face and the light bruise on Hima's cheek. Himawari shakes her head and sighs.

"No… I'm sorry. I'm just frustrated. This wasn't the plan… Nothing seems to be going right; Boruto barging into everything messed up my arrival plans first, since I had to keep him from dying before I could find you. It messed up my plans to finds Papa, and it messed up the day at the springs. And none of this would be happening if not for Kisaki starting it. Ugh… I'm sorry and I love you, Boruto, but sometimes, I wish you would just… _leave._ You and Kisaki both."

"Hey, everything I've done has been to try to _help_ you. You may think you can do this on your own, trying to sneak off to save the world, but you can't," Bolt says, frowning.

Hinata lifts her hands and shakes her head, and the two of them seem to flinch reflexively. "No more arguing… My father told me to tell you that you two aren't allowed to leave the compound yet, and suggested I train with you two to keep you busy while you're here, and I think that's just what we all need to do to ease this tension and get rid of some of this energy of yours. Let's go outside. Training in the snow should be good for cooling tempers and building character."

Hinata ushers her grumbling children out of her room, closing her eyes and rubbing her temples before following and hoping to herself that real motherhood doesn't end up like this in eighteen years.

**OoOoOoO**

Springing about the rooftops of the village always helped, somehow, to calm Kisaki's nerves, and she was glad that it still worked, even with as much stress as she's carrying on her shoulders. Even in the wind and cold, Kisaki enjoyed the freedom of thought that moving around in this way gave her, allowing her to perch up high and watch people and their indistinct features scurry about below, and the grey sky loom above, looking as if it was about to begin raining fluffy flakes on the earth again at any moment. With no idea of what to do or where to go, now that Naruto was starting to shut himself away, Kisaki was lost, and for a time, she just wandered the roofs.

The first time she stopped for longer than a minute was when she could feel surges of chakra from the Hyuga Compound, and left to nosily investigate, stumbling upon a spar happening in the courtyard. From the roof of the nearest building, Kisaki squints, and it doesn't take long for her to recognize that it was Hima and Bolt sparring, with Hinata sitting close by and overseeing.

It was difficult for Kisaki to keep up initially. Along with the standard quick, elegant motions and subtle attacks of the Gentle Fist style, at least on Hima's offensive, the two of them would very often trade incredibly fast dodging maneuvers using their Flying Raijins. The two of them chasing each other around the courtyard in rapid succession using lightning-fast teleports was like watching a frantic light show, almost, with mere twinkles in the air wherever they went, and no way to keep proper track of them until they tired out and returned to visibility.

Kisaki notes that Himawari has her Byakugan active, while Bolt doesn't, and she snorts to herself, wondering if the loudmouth was really _that_ overconfident in his abilities. Her brows rise, though, as it seems that Bolt is looking frustrated rather than smug, and after trading a few more blows with a sloppier version of his sister's more refined Gentle Fist style, he eventually falls backwards, on the verge of defeat.

Kisaki's thoughts slowly begin to change, from contempt to curiosity, as she watches Bolt slam his fist into the ground and climb right back up to his feet to charge headlong at Himawari. Bolt is deflected by a quick Rotation, but is not deterred, and rises once again to feebly charge. Kisaki squints in confusion, until she watches Bolt skid to a halt, right as Himawari begins her Rotation. He aims his hand close to the impenetrable spinning barrier, and to Kisaki's surprise, begins to control the violent chakra, forcing it to slow down, and even causing some to begin whirling in the opposite direction. The unstableness quickly causes Himawari's Rotation to shatter, and she's repelled backwards, slamming her back into the fence with a yelp. Bolt, as exhausted as he is, falls backwards and sighs as well.

Kisaki doesn't risk getting close enough to hear what Hinata says to them as she approaches to help them up, and after another brief few moments of thought, she turns and continues her run across the roofs of the Village. At first, her thoughts drift off to Bolt and his determination, and somewhere inside her, she takes that to heart, hardening herself up to not let these setbacks tear her down and defeat her.

Some time later, she stops again, and her thoughts begin to take in and analyze the training at large that she saw. Her eyes start to brighten and a smile begins to form as an idea comes to mind, and she looks back in the direction she started from, leaping off toward home.

**Sorry again for the extremely long delay between last chapter and this one. I'm going to try and do better and fight the writer's block! I'm not sure of an exact arrival date for the next chapter, but I'll try to have it up some time next month! I hope you've all had a merry Christmas and have a happy New Year!**

**~M.H.C~**

**May all your**

**Hearts beat with**

**Calamity!**

**Till next time!**


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